


Round and Round We Go

by Omeganixtra



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, One-Sided Attraction, Self-Harm, Sexual Content, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, timeloop AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 129,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21684859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omeganixtra/pseuds/Omeganixtra
Summary: Cayde is stuck in a timeloop that keeps sending him back to the very beginning every time something goes wrong. But he has to keep going—he has to try andfix this.Timeloop AU
Relationships: Andal Brask & Cayde-6, Andal Brask & Female Guardian (Destiny), Andal Brask/Cayde-6 (onesided), Andal Brask/Female Guardian (Destiny), Cayde-6 & Female Guardian, Cayde-6/Female Guardian (Destiny)
Comments: 127
Kudos: 182





	1. Cayde I

**Author's Note:**

> Important: please note that there are several harsh subjects included in this story, such as suicide and self-harm. Do not read this if that is not your cup of tea, or if it is of a particularly sensitive subject for you.

He wakes to darkness.

No. No, that’s not entirely true—not really. He can see the stars far up there in the sky, can see their light and their radiation and too many things that no human really should be able to tell.

But then again, he’s not really human anymore, now is he?

It’s silent, wherever he is. Well, _mostly_ silent, because he can pick up the gentle _swoosh_ of the wind poking at his form, and there’s a bite in the air that definitely signals him being somewhere either way up north or way down south, but he can’t be sure. Everything is bunched up inside of him and such a damn mess that he can scarcely make heads or tails out of any of this.

“You’re awake!”

For a moment he scrambles against the ground at the sound of that sudden, mechanical, voice, and lets out a shriek when the sensation of free-falling registers in his mind, but then there is darkness once more before he opens his optics to see an intimately-familiar Ghost look down at him.

He’d like nothing more than to lie and say that it doesn’t hurt to see her again, but—yeah, that… that would be the biggest lie he’d ever have to try and convince himself of.

She looks just like he remembers her—red and gold and orange and every single shade in between with the most brilliant blue color in her eye. His own Little Light, his Buddy—the partner who never left him.

“Do you have any idea how undignified you just managed to introduce yourself?” the Ghost—stars above, _Sundance_!—demands and sounds as if he’s just insulted someone’s family _at least_ ten generations and counting. “Hah! Talk about a complete lack of grace!”

This is how Cayde-6 wakes up once more.

* * *

He spends an awfully long time just staring at the little machine in his hands, gently stroking her fins and mumbling nonsense as he cradles her close to his core systems—to his heart.

She probably has no damn idea about what is going on.

And Cayde can barely make heads or tails out of any of this himself.

Nothing about any of this makes any sense here, because Cayde _remembers_ and he knows for a fact that Guardians, Exo or not, are very much _not_ supposed to remember anything of their former lives. But he does. He remembers everything from before, everything that led him to his final stand and every single mistake he’s done to get there.

He remembers the fiasco that is—is it _is_ or is it _was_? He has no idea—the Prison of Elders. He remembers Petra’s panicked surprise, remembers flying through the air on top of a burning command center, remembers a truly spectacular landing and then getting his metal ass thoroughly thrashed by the Scorned Barons—by the Hanged Man who put him through walls and the Scorned who stripped him of any dignity that he might have had left afterwards.

He remembers Sundance, that fateful, stupidly idiotic moment where he pulls her out and he sees her shell shatter in a million pieces.

He remembers Uldren and the bullet that was put through his chest by his own gun, of all things.

He remembers the Guardian crying above him as his life is leaving his body and everything going pleasantly dark afterwards.

He remembers thinking “_No, not now_. _Not like this_.” and wishing more than anything that he could have one more chance. One chance to get things right—to save Andal, triumph over Taniks, not send so many Guardians to their deaths in the Red War.

But he doesn’t remember why he is here now, how he is back and what he can do here.

Why he is back here at the very beginning, Cayde has no fucking idea, but if this is a second chance then he won’t dare risk it—won’t _dare_ risk anything.

“Something wrong?”

Sundance’s question wrenches him out of the melancholic thoughtscape that he’s almost trapped himself in, and Cayde looks down at his Ghost, so innocent and wondering, sitting in his hands and looking up at him with that one, wonderous blinking eye.

“No,” he manages to get out past the imaginary thick lump in his throat and strokes her fins as carefully as he can. “No, I was jus—bit overwhelming all of this, yeah?”

“I suppose,” Sundance agrees. “But I wouldn’t know, never tried this before.”

They sit there on the edge of the cliff for quite a while, Cayde stroking his Ghost softly in his hands and switching between watching her and the stars dancing across the night sky so far above the two of them.

“What is your name?”

Her question takes him by surprise once more.

“My name?” he blinks. “You don’t know?”

If a Ghost could roll their eye, this would be how they looked. “I knew you were my Guardian, not your entire backstory, you dunce.”

That… honestly, that actually makes pretty reasonable sense.

“Cayde,” he eventually gets out. “My name’s Cayde.”

“Well, Cayde,” Sundance leaves his hands and floats up until she is on eyelevel with him. “It’s very nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise,” he smiles and for a moment everything is fine.

Everything is perfectly fine.

* * *

It’s afterwards that all of the doubts begin to set in proper.

Sundance won’t understand, because how could she ever, and Cayde has no intensions of ever telling her about this.

If she learns that he remembers everything she’ll probably think that something is _wrong_, that a reset might be necessary for him to keep functioning, and Clovis Bray might very well be gone, but Cayde knows that their wretched machinery used for resetting Exos is still very much in business.

Like Hell that he’ll go through all that once more.

So, together they make their way to the Last City through mountain ridges and enemy territory and Cayde finds that he revels in it—revels in the challenge and the unpredictability of wild nature that simulated mission-runs and listening in on strike comms cannot truly replicate.

All those years in the Tower, no matter how necessary, only solidifies to him how detached he has become and how overwhelming it actually feels to be in the field again.

“You certainly seem happy,” Sundance notes when Cayde fords a river and he sends her the widest, happiest grin that his mechanical face can muster. “Damn weirdo.”

He gives her a token complaint before crawling up the muddy bank on the other side. “You love me anyway. Admit it.”

Her resulting laugh is like balm to a wound he wasn’t even aware that he had.

* * *

The City looks almost like he remembers it from back in the early days, although the walls are not quite as high and there are far fewer people.

_Not finished yet_, he thinks morosely as he wanders through one of the gates and into what will probably only be a gathering of all his worst and best nightmares come to life once more.

* * *

Cayde is right on that last part.

He _never_ could have foreseen Andal Brask being back in the picture.

* * *

Seeing Andal again… seeing his _brother_ alive and well and breathing is a shock to his system if he’s ever had one before. He can’t really remember clearly what being suckerpunched feels like, but he’s willing to bet a pretty substantial amount of glimmer on what he’s feeling right now to be just _slightly_ similar.

“Andal…”

“Yup, that’s right,” the oblivious asshole has the nerve to smile at him, as if he _isn’t_ uprooting all of Cayde’s carefully formed walls with every second that passes. “I’ll be your mentor until further notice, seems we’re lackin’ a Vanguard at the moment, sadly.”

Oh, _fuck_.

_Fuck, fuck fuck fuckFUCK_

“Vanguard?” Cayde’s voice is pathetically small as he throws out his query and Andal, bright and idiotic man that he is, takes the bait without question.

The brilliant, blinding smile that almost seems to light up the room somehow dims every so slightly as Andal’s face takes a more morose tone.

“Yeah, fuckin’ Exo—no offense meant, of course—decided to bail on us. Last I heard, Caliban was out scouring Saturn’s rings and no one has any idea when the bastard means to be back.”

Caliban.

_Caliban_.

The first thing that rushes through his mind is joy—_Oh thank the fucking Traveler hanging in the sky, there’s time yet_—before the dread and caution swiftly kicks it all to pieces.

Can he do this?

Can he actually be clever enough to make it so that he never issues that fucking Dare, so that Andal never dies?

The real question that plagues his mind is whether or not that he can outsmart Destiny on this one thing.

Well, Cayde sighs, he can certainly _try_.

* * *

But nothing is ever easy, now is it?

* * *

He tries, he really does, but Andal is nothing if not a magnet for trouble everywhere and Cayde automatically attaches himself like a baby animal imprinting on its mother the very first time that it sees her. The same happens with Shiro—and isn’t that just a fucking _riot_ when he sees Shiro once more, but somehow smaller and more insecure and definitely not the straight up professional Guardian that he knows from old times, who would do the craziest shit if the dare and the spoils were anywhere good enough.

Cayde spends an embarrassingly long amount of time dry heaving in an alley after the oil and the odd bits of food still left in his system are splattered all over the Tower’s white marble-slabs.

Sundance never says a word.

* * *

Taniks finds them.

He finds Cayde and his friends and Cayde spends the entire aftermath firmly awake and refusing to shut his eyes for even a moment as he struggles to get everyone safely back to the City and its high walls.

For once, he thinks, their protection doesn’t feel stifling.

Lush loses his Ghost, just like last time, and Shiro gets carted off to the middle of bumfuck nowhere the moment that their mismatched crew lands their shellshocked asses in the Tower.

And Andal…

Andal takes it the hardest out of all of them.

Cayde remembers how he was the last time, how he seemingly disappeared into mapping out routes, researched contacts all over the system, rigged who knows how many communication lines between the Fallen out there, all in the name of finding and destroying Taniks.

Oh, how naïve they were.

How naïve they still _are_.

Cayde doesn’t let him.

He drags him out into the wilds, still close enough to easily slip back into the City if it becomes neccesary, and doesn’t stop no matter what slurs and screams are hurled at him until Andal is ready to drop dead from exhaustion.

“Go on,” he tells the human, his best friend, his brother. “Get it out.”

Andal goes for his throat.

Both of them do, if he’s being honest. They throw everything that they have under their belts at each other, screams over the injustice of the Universe and how it has thoroughly fucked them up the ass in one fell swoop.

It ends in a fucking fiasco that Cayde has wanted to evade for as long as he has been back here in the world from the beginning—from _his_ beginning.

If nothing else Cayde is a professional, fucking fool.

He’s brought alcohol, because that is apparently the only way for him to cope with anything that the last forty-eight hours have thrown at him, and there is plenty enough to share of.

Somehow, and this is really quite ridiculous, he ends up in the same place, in the same company, and under a brilliant and clear night sky he drunkenly spits out the Dare to Andal.

Just like last time he tries to retract it.

And just like last time, Andal stubbornly clings to the promise that they’ve made to each other with pilfered booze and broken dreams and enough bruises to paint both of them every color of the rainbow.

* * *

History has a pretty funny way of repeating itself.

They find Taniks, or Cayde does at least—quite by accident is not said out loud—and he proceeds to load enough lead into the guy until the walls and floor and ceiling of the crashed Fallen ship they’ve found themselves in is painted a dark red.

This time he slits the bastard’s throat, just for good measure.

He has no idea if Taniks will stay down from everything he’s done, but he’ll be damned if he won’t at least try to keep him down for good.

That it also feels fucking good to do is a whole other thing.

* * *

Andal becomes the Vanguard once more.

He succeeds the empty spot that Caliban-8 and Kauko Swiftrunner both leave behind when they just up and disappear as the years go by.

Cayde spends the day of Andal’s inauguration deep in his cups and avoids any and all company. He can’t do it, can’t face his _everything_ when he _knows_ how bad everything will go if he doesn’t do something, and _soon_.

Because Cayde can’t do this again.

He can’t sit there and just do _nothing_ when Andal disappears to who knows where and the only thing they’ll find of him will be the tattered cloak from Taniks’ bloody hunt wrapped around the mauled remains of his body, and a Ghost’s shell shattered not far from the scene of the crime.

So Cayde gets going.

He plans. He considers. He tries to ready himself for the inevitable to happen.

* * *

He is so very proud of himself when he spots Andal leaving one summer morning and follows behind as soon as he possibly can.

Taniks won’t get him this time.

* * *

Cayde feels like a god from the moment that he has Taniks firmly in his sights, and the sniper rifle’s trigger itches to a profound degree as he watches the Fallen slowly corner Andal in the middle of nowhere.

When the shot goes off, it takes Taniks by surprise long enough for Andal to wrench a few dozen knives into the bastard’s body, and he goes down with Andal on top of him, screaming himself hoarse in revenge of his Ghost’s life.

Cayde returns to the City. His mission is fulfilled. Everything is right in the world, for once.

* * *

Andal comes back, hollow-eyed and shattered from the loss of his Ghost, battered and bruised and bleeding but _alive_, and Cayde tackles the man the very moment that he sets foot in the hangar. He ignores everyone around him as he just clutches the human to his chest, whispers his name again and again and again until his voicebox threatens to short circuit from overheating and the tips of Andal’s ears are bright red.

Celebrations commence immediately in the Hunter Barracks and it isn’t long before the moonshine is flowing and more than a few Guardians are swinging from the rafters.

Cayde keeps himself plastered to Andal’s side, obsessively and possessively like he’s never been before, and glares heatedly at anyone who dares get near to take away his time with the man.

Pretty soon the partygoers learn _not_ to get too close to the Exo and human.

“Sharing is caring, Cayde,” Andal laughs, but his voice sounds hollow and without the usual luster of happiness and life that it has always held before.

Cayde can sympathize, he still feels the ripple from Sundance’s death sometimes when he slumbers long enough for his subconscious to draft up dreams.

It won’t ever heal, not even now when he has her back somehow—when he has _both_ back.

* * *

Something doesn’t feel right.

He ignores it, ignores his Ghost and how she keeps looking at the horizon, almost as if she knows something that he doesn’t.

The night belongs to Andal and his success, and _nothing_ is going to take it from him.

* * *

So, apparently, Taniks had a backup plan in case of his—in Cayde's numble opinion—timely demise.

The City is attacked in the night as fifteen Fallen ketches descend upon the Tower.

Cayde finds Andal fighting in the courtyard, handcannon ablaze and roaring orders left, right and center, and standing as the last line of defense together with Ikora’s Void and Zavala’s Arc. The billowing smoke is choking, or it would be if Cayde was a human and not an Exo, but thick enough to obscure any form of visibility that the Guardians might have here.

Andal never sees it coming.

The shot, coming from who knows where, rips through his chest and sends the Hunter—_Ghost-less oh Traveler no not Andal not again no I can’tdothispleaseAndalnotyouanyonebutyouican’tdothisagainpleasejustwakeup—_Vanguard hurtling through the air.

Time stops.

Cayde runs.

Andal’s blood is warm and sticky as it flows freely from the bulletwound directly in the middle of his chest—a mockery from the Universe if Cayde has ever seen one—and Cayde _howls_.

He doesn’t register Zavala’s outraged cry when he flings himself in the direction from where the shot came, doesn’t deign to spare Ikora a glance as he finds an old friend—enemy—_Pirrha_, that fucking _bastard_—at the end of the courtyard.

He doesn’t feel it when the bullet rips through his own outer casing and digs into the delicate machinery beneath it. He barely lets it slow him down.

He also doesn’t feel it when a horde of Vandals drag him to the ground, stabbing their blades into his body again and again and again until he is more shrapnel than war robot.

But he does feels the pain of Andal’s loss, of his death once more but this time right in front of him, and Cayde closes his eyes.

* * *

When he wakes up to stare up at the starry skies above him, lying on the ground in the middle of nowhere with a familiar Ghost looking down at him, Cayde screams.

Not out of fear or surprise from being scared.

No, he screams in frustration.

His lungs have no need for oxygen, but still he screams until the phantom-yearning to breathe properly is strong enough to make him whoozy and lightheaded until he passes out.

It doesn’t help one bit.

* * *

He’s pretty sure that he has scarred Sundance for life as he sets out once more for the City.

This Ghost is quiet, never asks for his name and shies away from him whenever he deems it necessary to stop.

Cayde can’t do this again, he just _can’t_.

Why the fuck is he even here?

* * *

“Name’s Andal. I’ll be your mentor until further notice, so buckle up, yeah?”

It’s familiar and it’s strange and Cayde wants to do nothing but curl up and _die_.

* * *

He loses Andal again.

Cayde handles it about as well as the first—what should have been the _only_—time.

He screams—and _that_ is about as useful as the first time he’s done this but it _feels good_ and that is all that Cayde needs right now.

Once more everything goes to shit, even as he tries to be everywhere at once, tries to have everyone ready for an assault, tries to make Andal know that he can take somebody with him to find Taniks, and when he finally does, it is Cayde who is chosen.

But Cayde being there changes nothing.

Taniks overpowers them, still ruins Andal’s Ghost, and Cayde is trapped beneath a broken plate of concrete that even his enhanced Exo-muscles cannot move as Taniks strips Andal of his life once more.

Somehow, seeing it happen right in front of him is almost easier to bear than not really knowing how it happens.

At least this time Cayde doesn’t have to imagine all of the terrible things that Taniks does to Andal.

There’s just one tiny thing that shakes him to the very core, about all of this.

The things that Taniks _does_ do to Andal are much, _much_ worse.

* * *

He wakes up on the cliff, stars and Sundance above him, heaving for air that he doesn't really need, as the screams of Andal still rings in his ears and the feeling of his red, sticky blood yet to fade from his sensors.

Cayde curls up and screams himself hoarse in the night.

* * *

He tries again.

Everything replays as if they’re stuck in a neverending loop of an old Golden Age movie.

Cayde switches it up every single time.

He keeps coming back in that same spot over and over and over again, keeps trying to save Andal in a million different ways, and every single time the end result is the same.

Andal always dies. No matter what Cayde does, it is never enough to save the man that he loves.

* * *

He’s taken to marking himself for every month that he gets right. There’s not enough room on his body to do it on a day to day basis and it’s the only way for him to stay sane at this point, the only way that he can keep a tight ship in this fuckfest of a storm that he’s found himself at sea in.

Practically religiously at this point, he carves a distinct line across his arm and does his very best to ignore the noise that the metal makes in protest. No one will see the lines under all of his clothing, and he’ll probably have to invest in some longer, more everything-resistant leathers soon, because with the way that he keeps throwing himself into danger, into battle, as if he has nothing to lose, the easier it will be for someone—_Andal_, his mind whispers treacherously—to see.

And he doesn’t want anyone—Andal—to see, not this.

Sundance is waved away when she freaks at the sight of him sitting there in an isolated corner of the barracks with a knife to his arm and small whittles of metal in a ring around him.

Because this is all that he has as proof that this is _real_ and anyone who wants to try to take this away from him can fucking _come_.

He doesn’t show anyone the scratches, not even Andal, because Andal will try to make him stop, will probably see it as self-destructive, and fuck yeah, it’s self-destructive but it’s all that Cayde has at this point.

It’s all he has.

But all those lines on his arm doesn’t save him one bit when Andal’s severed head is delivered skewered on a spear three days later on the outskirts of the City’s walls.

* * *

Cayde lets himself fall from the top of the walls with Sundance in his arms and begs her for a final death during the entire fall. She must grant it because he lingers in the darkness long enough to know that it won't be long before he's back at the beginning once more.

* * *

One cycle starts and ends worse than the rest.

Cayde is tired, tired of everything and simply _hurts_.

Both of them, him and Andal, are horribly, terribly drunk and absolutely nothing good will come of any of this, but Cayde still tugs him closer, still strips their clothes and lands both of them in the nearest bed.

He is vicious and aggressive and gives as good as he gets, and the two of them are riddled with scratches and bruises come morning. Andal never comments on the many lines that are notched into Cayde heavier metal-parts, and Cayde is grateful for it—just one less lie he’ll have to tell Andal at some point.

In any case, neither ever speak of the sleeping-together thing again and Andal is gone from within the week.

* * *

This time Cayde ends everything early by himself. He sends a bullet through Sundance first before blowing his own brains out, because he just _can’t _do this—can’t continue in a world where he has had the taste of love, _real love_ even if it was experienced drunk, with Andal, only to have one Fallen who just can’t stay fucking dead take everything away again.

* * *

Cayde just can’t do it anymore. Not now, not when all of _this_ has culminated into one night of bad decisions.

Bad decisions that has made his heart ache and cry out for a man that he can probably never have.

* * *

Everything still ends up the same after another botched attempt, and Cayde’s arm is blank under the light of the stars.

* * *

And so, it continues.

* * *

And again.

* * *

And again.

* * *

And again.

* * *

And again.

* * *

It’s always the same.

It’s always the fucking same, even with the small variations here and there.

Sometimes they fall in love and their romance is a trailblazer across the Universe that always gets snuffed out, because Guardians just aren’t allowed to have nice things in their life.

Sometimes they are the most bitter of enemies there is out there, sniping at each other and fighting for dominance in something that scarcely even _resembles_ the close bond that they’ve shared together so many times before. Cayde always hates it when that happens, even as he tries to remind himself that it is necessary if he is to grow cold and unattached.

Sometimes they are just friends. Very nice and simple friends who have put themselves into familiar, safe boxes in their brains and are happy to simply stay right where they are.

Cayde reels from the domesticity that inevitably finds its way into nearly all of the outcomes.

* * *

Cayde-6 comes back to life on the edge of a cliff in the middle of the night with the shining stars above him, but he can’t see them anymore.

All that he sees is the Moon hanging in the sky, and in the distance there is the faint shape of the Traveler hanging silently in the sky above the Last City.

He narrows his eyes.

This time he never says anything, never acknowledges Sundance who helplessly trails behind him for days, crying out to him as Cayde-6—but is it really just 'Cayde-6' that is his moniker now, or should he rather just attach a fucking infinity-symbol at the end of his name now?—stalks through the Wilds to the City, gets his hands on the first jumpship that he can, and immediately flies as close to the Traveler as he possibly can.

He’s never been up close and personal to Humanity’s very own physical God before.

Being this close is… strange.

He can see _everything_, from the off-white material that makes up its… well, _skin_, to the millions (if not billions) of scratches and tears and small rips that are only visible this close.

A strange sense of peace slowly fills him as he breathes in the Light that emanates from the Traveler, as its very own Light begins to wrap around him like the softest of down blankets, as worries and doubts and fears begin to take a backseat inside of his brain.

Cayde breathes in deep before he lets loose the pandemonium that now lives inside of him.

“Why was I brought here?!” he roars at the Traveler. “Why the _fuck_ was I brought back if I can’t even be allowed to change anything for the better? Why?! _Why did Andal have to die_?!”

A knife is in his hand before he knows it and instinctively, he hurls it. Almost with a sort of detached melancholy draping itself over his thoughts, he watches as the small weapon arcs through the air and collides with the Traveler’s shell with a sharp _ping_. The knife is stuck and Cayde heaves for unnecessary breath

“Guardian, what are you _doing_?!” Sundance screams both in the physical world and inside his head, but Cayde snarls wordlessly at her and sends her flying when she tries to move in front of him, tries to intervene in something that has absolutely fucking _nothing_ to do with her!

“Either take me back to wherever it was that you found me and leave me there, or give me a damn answer!” Cayde roars and Solar energy flares around him.

This close to the Traveler it almost feels like a magnificent abundance of energy, very much similar to that one time where he and Shiro got high as kites on electricized graphite. It builds and it coils inside of Cayde until he feels like he’s going to burst and before he knows it the Golden Gun is in his hand and pointed directly at the largest black, crackled spot that he can find in his immediate vicinity.

“I am _done_, d’you hear me?!”

Sundance is still screaming at him to _stop_ and _think about what he’s doing_.

Cayde is done stopping. Cayde is done _thinking_.

He has seen enough. He has been through enough now, seen countless Andals smile and scream and love and die right before his eyes, but no more.

_NO. MORE._

He. Is. Fucking. _Done_.

“_You will give me something_.”

The Gun burns brighter, the influx of Light feeding it until the brightness is almost that of a small Sun and even Cayde has to shield his eyes from the rays that are emitted. This close the Traveler seems bathed in the golden light that shines from his Gun, but Cayde sees nothing but an inanimate object that has done fuck-all for anyone ever since the Golden Age. An ancient relic that no one even knows what to do with anymore, something that has risen up to be worshipped like a God.

Cayde is fucking sick of it.

Then, the Light suddenly goes from soothing and gentle to sharp and painful as something _digs _into him, hooks claws inside of his mind, and with a roar Cayde stumbles back as _meaning_ suddenly flashes inside of his head.

He stumbles over the edge of the hovering jumpship, somehow managing to trip over thin air, and then he is hurtling towards the ground as something akin to _understanding_ washes over him.

A shame, really, that he doesn’t really get to dissect any of it before he collides with the roof of a skyscraper and everything goes black.

* * *

This time it’s different.

Darkness is everywhere as far as the eye can see, and Cayde floats in the middle of it. Gently, it rocks him back and forth and Cayde understands.

Because this darkness is not _the_ Darkness. No, this the darkness that one sees when they close their eyes, the soothing lack of light for tired eyes and sleepy minds, the kind that belongs in the bedroom. The kind of darkness that he could get lost in for _days_ in Andal’s eyes, that goes unspoken, even if he thinks it.

But it is also cruel, for the darkness that he floats in makes Cayde _understand._

It hurts incredibly for who knows how long—understanding, that is.

So much information, much more than everything he has ever experienced in his life so far, is being pressed inside of his head. The sheer amount of it hurts to think about, but it forces him to anyway and Cayde screams as understanding and acknowledging fills his tired, weary head.

_I see now_

Andal’s eyes look up at him, unfocused and unseeing—dead.

_No, please_

A reality that he truly cannot escape. A reality that Cayde cannot hide from behind cards and jokes and late nights at a bar with a drink in his hand and music playing in the background.

He has spent years, decades, probably well over a century in total by now, on trying to prevent the one thing that had once taken _everything_ from him, and yet… Andal’s death is completely, utterly inevitable. It can never be avoided, and in reality, then he shouldn’t even have _tried_, because the Universe obviously works in mysterious ways, and there are apparently just some things that are meant to happen, whether they are wanted or not.

Cayde does not deal with _that _in any sort of progressive way.

He screams and he rages at the darkness that envelops him, struggles as he is pulled deeper, _further_ into the abyss that is waiting to swallow him up like he’s a tasty morsel of food and not a Guardian who just threatened the closest thing to true divinity that humanity has seen since… well, since ever.

To Cayde, Andal is everything. He is everything that Cayde has done right, that Cayde has done wrong, and letting him go will never happen.

It can’t happen.

If Cayde does this, if he lets go of Andal, then where will he be? _Who_ will he be is probably a _much_ better question at the moment.

So Cayde rages.

He screams and tears and rends at the ink black darkness all around him and refuses to bend when it tries to break him, and in return it only twists around him, much, _much_ tighter.

But the darkness isn’t finished with him, not by a long shot.

The understanding, the information that flows through his head never ceases its overwhelming pressure, and Cayde sees _everything_.

The Battle of Mare Ibrium—the Great Disaster. A necessary evil that must be allowed to happen. By now, Cayde has seen it countless times before and there is no doubt in his mind that he’ll see it again, probably.

Twilight Gap, where they will “lose” Ana Bray, where Shaxx will stand his ground and roar the Fallen into a screeching retreat against all expectations.

The Black Garden. Cayde still shudders to think about how he might be involved, be it as mentor for the Guardian who will lead the march for the destruction of the evil within, or as the comedic effect ever-present and ever-bound to the Hall of Guardians on Earth.

The second coming of Crota, the coming of his father, Oryx.

Cayde sees it all. And in the midst of it he sees himself, _alive_ and without Andal by his side, but with a fellow, faceless Guardian instead. A Guardian who he knows intimately as a friend, someone who can always be relied on in any shitty situation that the City manages to drag itself into.

A Guardian who he will have to cast to the wolves in order to keep going and stay sane.

Or, at least as sane as he possibly can in this hellhole of an existence.

He sees so much more.

The Reef and the Prison of Elders flashes in his mind as a tower wreathed in dull fog rises in the distance, and a mouth of needle-sharp teeth grinning at him from afar. Jade coins and toothy smiles, a chalice of gold and a crown wreathed in the foul arcana of the Hive—so many things flit through his mind and it overwhelms him time and time again. Every time that he almost seems to have it under some measure of control, it all falls away as something new rushes into the ever-expanding place within his brain where all of this is seared into his vast banks of data.

At some point he sees himself.

He sees himself, hidden beneath a white sheet and the only identifying mark being his gun placed gingerly on top of it. He sees a crumbling Vanguard, Guardians torn between two alternatives and warring with each other, sees dark shapes from beyond the Milky Way slowly encroach, following the Traveler’s Light like a flock of sharks smelling blood in the water.

This is the fate that he was saved from, what befell everyone after he had gone and outdone himself in sheer stupidity.

“_We’re going to fight him_,” Ikora’s voice snaps in the darkness and Cayde recoils. The venom and animosity that he hears is _scalding_. “_Do you hear me? All of us. Every Titan. Every Warlock. Ever Hunter_.”

He never wanted this. He never wanted to be placed upon a pedestal as if he has become untouchable. All he would have wanted was to be remembered and toasted, maybe given a thought every now and then. Not… not this manhunt for a prince he couldn’t even be bothered to give a single fuck about.

“_We are not an army_.”

Who would have thought that Cayde would ever have agreed so much with Zavala?

Because Cayde absolutely agrees. He has seen the fields of Mare Ibrium, seen how hordes of Guardians fell beneath Crota’s wicked blade the last time that an army from the Last City was let loose, and he knows intimately just how spectacularly they can fail.

Wherever Uldren goes after his stunt at the Prison will be decimated by war and the Light raging against anything already living there, and as it stands, he knows that the City cannot take another invasion after everything that the Red War viciously uprooted.

This cannot happen, he can’t—no, _won’t_—let it happen.

Ikora, his dear friend who barely knows the Wilds from upside to down but will absolutely wreck anyone’s ass any time in the Crucible, means well. He adores the fact that she will readily avenge him, should anything ever happen, but that timeline is gone now. At least, he hopes that it is. He keeps coming back, time and time again, because he somehow fucks something up that should never have been fucked with from the beginning. And he already knows what that is, even if he is loath to admit it.

Andal.

Somehow, he keeps getting stuck every time that he meets Andal once again, disgustingly obsessed with trying to save a dead man, even if nothing that he will ever do can save him.

Cayde can almost see Andal in front of him, smiling that crooked, wry smile of his that he does sometimes whenever something that he sees is infinitely more amusing than what he’s actually supposed to be doing. Oh, how he longs to see that smile again, to see Andal unburdened by his duty to the Vanguard or those who have been affected by Taniks and the terror that he has spread. To see him smile like that once more, unburdened and simply living his second chance at life one day at a time, that would be more than Cayde could ever hope to have, even if he has to preserve the memory ten different ways in order to never forget the exact shade of Andal’s eyes or how he smells or even how his skin feels beneath the miniscule sensors imbedded everywhere in Cayde’s body.

Maybe that is when he realizes it. When he realizes that he needs to let go.

Even if he doesn’t want to, Cayde has to let go—of Andal, of his memory, of trying to save the man, the brother, that he loves more than anything else in this world.

The darkness wraps around him, caresses his cheeks like a lover, and Cayde closes his optics in understanding.

“I’m ready now,” he chokes out. “I understand.”

And bright Light fills his vision.

* * *

The night sky and the cliff are both there to greet him as he wakes, understanding and heaving for unnecessary breath.

His arm is blank.

Cayde, for the first time in who even knows how long, silently cries in the middle of the night as the stars shine brightly above him, blinking down at him and his dirt-caked, filthy unmarked arm.

* * *

So, Cayde has to let go.

He’s never really been good with stuff like that. He clings to the past, what he’s had before, like a dog worrying at a bone, and for all the grief that it has given him over the many years that he has seen pass by on repeat.

But he does as best he can.

He comes to the City like a good little Guardian, takes up arms in the name of the Light and the Traveler and the Last City of Humanity as its enemies come waltzing up to the gates from left, right and center. Cayde watches as Andal strides into his second life, blazing like a star and just as bright up close as their friendship blooms immediately, as Shiro is taken into the fold, followed by Lush who is just as hard to greet that very first time as Andal was.

The four of them—the things that they do, oh, but he loves it. He’ll see them all again, just one more time before everything will go to shit, before he’ll take up the mantle of Vanguard for Andal’s sake—Andal’s legacy, more like—because if anyone deserves an honorable memory it’s him.

He’ll probably fail again, the knowledge that he will is seared into his mind and hangs like a guillotine’s blade above his neck every night that he closes his eyes and prays for the day that Andal’s murder by Taniks sneaks closer and closer.

The fact that he knows it’s coming is almost worse, somehow.

* * *

“Hey,” he pokes at Andal with his foot one evening, Exo-liquor in hand as he is lying on the roof of the Tower, staring up at the night sky above the two of them. “What do you think happens… after?”

“After what?”

“After, y’know, death.”

Andal raises himself up on his elbows. “Damn, someone’s gettin’ grim tonight, huh?”

Cayde chuckles and swirls the bright liquid in his bottle. “Jus—just kind of thought ‘bout it all just now. No one really knows, do they?”

Andal smiles at him, that somber, soft smile that makes Cayde feel fuzzy all the way down to his toes. “I like to think that the Traveler takes care of us… well, afterwards.”

“What, you mean like after a real RTL?”

“Yeah,” the human nods and rests his head back against the roofing of the Tower. “Yeah, I like to think that.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Cayde sighs before taking a swig of his bottle. “Maybe…”

“What’s with the mood, though?”

Cayde’s brow rises in confusion. “My moo—what _mood_? I ain’t in no mood.”

Andal’s laughter echoes slightly as it rolls across the roofing. Cayde saves the sound almost immediately, covets it like a dragon covets its hoard.

“You know exactly what I mean, you smarmy bastard. What’s with the mood?”

“Jus—” the words almost seem to get stuck in his throat. “Just have a bad feeling, is all.”

It’s not a lie, he has _that_ working for him.

“_Cayde, are you sure about this?_” Sundance asks inside of his head. “_Be honest with him, you owe him _that.”

“You never know how long you got after the Traveler wakes you up again,” he elaborates when Andal doesn’t say anything to his first bout of talking. “I just wanted to—what I’m trying to say here is that you never know which day is going to be your last, and I guess that I just wanted to be sure that there was somethin’, y’know… after.”

“Look at you being all philosophical here in the middle of the night,” Andal laughs again, but this time it’s strained and Cayde notices, because at this point, he might as well be attuned enough to Andal to know if his fucking heart beat in the wrong rhythm. "This is the last time I let you take graphite again, just you watch me."

“‘M just bein’ careful, Andal,” Cayde grouches, but even so he wrestles himself off the roofing and instead leans closer to Andal, booze bottle still in hand. “You’ll be careful out there, yeah?”

Andal stills. His laughter cuts off and even his Ghost pops out in a flash of bright Light, blinking owlishly at Cayde with its singular, blue eye.

“Cayde, is something wrong?”

Damn, he’d forgotten how easy it is for Andal to slide into the role of staunch protector.

“No,” Cayde shakes his head as a wistful smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “No, nothing’s wrong, Andal. I just… I love you, you know that, right?”

Andal blinks. Somehow, Cayde’s words seem to have surprised him. Damn, that’s not exactly something that happens all that often.

It makes what’ll come soon only that much harder.

Cayde carries on, though—he’ll lose his bravery if he doesn’t. “You’re my brother, Andal, in anything but blood. I don’t… they always say ‘don’t get attached’, but damn it if it hasn’t happened anyway.”

“Cayde, you’re worrying over noth—”

He cuts Andal off abruptly with a tight hug, burrowing against him as close as he can get. “You’re my _brother_, Andal. I love you, and I just needed you to know that. Just promise me you’ll be careful wherever you go.”

There, he’s done it. He’s said what he needs to say. And he hasn’t fucked with the timeline, at least not in any way that’ll make everything whip back to the cliffside in the middle of the night with the stars shining above him like cut diamonds. Oh, he hopes so.

Andal, meanwhile, seems properly lost for words at Cayde’s sudden confession.

Finally, as realization makes his eyes light up for a moment, Andal seemingly gets it. “This is about my trip, isn’t it?”

“So what if it is?” Cayde mumbles against Andal’s neck, his free hand bunching up the fabric of his cloak—Cayde’s cloak.

“I’m coming back, Cayde,” Andal soothes and runs a hand over the back of Cayde’s head, even scratches lightly at the plating there. “There ain’t nothing out there that could keep me away from the City, from _you_.”

“Don’t make a promise that you can’t keep.”

Andal draws back at that, frowning now instead of smiling. “Cayde, is there something that you’re not telling me?”

Cayde can’t face him, not now, not like this.

“_Cayde_.”

He needs to say something, he _knows_ that, but he _can’t_.

This will be the last time that he will ever talk with Andal and he can’t fuck this up—_he just can’t_.

“Nah,” he finally croaks out and leans back as well to look at Andal, to _really_ look at him and committing everything that he can about the man to memory. “No, I’m ju—_urgh_.”

“What?”

Exo can’t cry, not really. Sure, they can simulate sobs and their voices can get wobbly from the emotional response that their brains try to make work in a mechanical body, but real tears ain’t something that they can do.

Cayde sure does feel like bawling, though.

“You’re… I wanted to apologize, I guess,” he finally relinquishes after Andal’s eyes are beginning to slowly bore a hole into his skull. “For how I’ve been acting.”

“Hmm?”

“About how I’ve been acting with _you_, Andal. Traveler knows that I’ve been a fucking ass.”

“Oh, Cayde…”

The tense expression on Andal’s face morphs into a relaxed grin as he reaches out to bring Cayde back in a firm embrace. His hand comes up, warm and calloused, to rest once more at the back of Cayde’s head. His eyes, this close at least, are warm and softer than Cayde has seen them in a fairly long time. The man sighs wearily as he drags Cayde closer, just tight enough for his beard to scratch against his facial plates.

“Something’s not right, Cayde,” Andal murmurs against his brow-plate. “I just can’t—after that last stint with Taniks I just… I just want to be sure, that’s all.”

It feels like issuing a death sentence, but Cayde leans into Andal’s touch nonetheless, clings to it like a thirsting man chugging water. His optics slide shut as his own hand comes up to rest against the back of Andal’s head. “I know that I can’t tell you what to do, but just… be careful out there, yeah?”

Andal’s lips press against his brow, warm and chapped and slightly wet from the alcohol they’ve been drinking since sundown.

“Aren’t I always?”

The bottle of Exo-liquor is bright green against the matte tiling of the Tower’s roof as both of Cayde’s arms sling around Andal’s shoulders.

* * *

When Andal leaves the next morning Cayde stands in the hangar, waving him off with a wobbly smile as his fist is clenched tight enough to bend steel.

He marks off yet another month in the quiet of his barracks room.

* * *

Cayde doesn’t say a single word for a week following Andal’s death.

He is silent as he steps into the Hall of Guardians unannounced, carrying Andal’s bloodstained, torn cloak and his handcannon. The Hall is silent, even Shaxx’s eternal shouting stills as Ikora’s voice yells a desperate “_NO_!” and Zavala’s stoic shock is painted across his face.

Logically, he knows that he’s not alone in his grief, but a lump grows in his throat every single time that he tries to say something to the Hunters now looking to _him_ for guidance on what their now-deceased leader would have wanted them to do. He does his best and Sundance is right there beside him the entire time as he struggles to put out the words that need saying, as he organizes patrols and plans supply raids on Fallen all while juggling everything needed for Andal’s Wake—the old patterns from before the Prison are almost soothing to fall back on every single day when he finally puts down his comm after speaking with the arrangers.

Somehow he has ended up already acting like the Hunter Vanguard before he is even officially approached about the position.

But they do, eventually.

Surprisingly it is Zavala who approaches him about the whole thing.

“I’ll do it,” he spits before the Titan has even said a word, momentarily looking up from the mountain of reports that he is sorting through. “I’ll take A-Andal’s… _place_.”

The last word is spat out like it’s poison to his ears, and in some ways it _is_.

“You already knew?”

“Not hard to guess,” Cayde leans back in his chair and stretches his back out, sighing when metallic joints click into place. “Any Hunter worth their salt would have put two and two together by now, what with the way you and Rey have been eyeing me lately.”

“You have shown remarkable leadership during this unfortunate time, Cayde-6,” Zavala rumbles and steps forward. The hand that he places upon Cayde’s shoulder is heavy and warm, a much-needed anchor in the midst of the storm that the Tower is holed up in. “That deserves recognition.”

“Such a shame that it had to manifest ‘cause of a dead man, eh?” Cayde’s snappy comment is completely without fire as he puts down the datapad with shaking hands and stares directly at the desk in front of him. “Shouldn’t have happened this way.”

“The Vanguard is by your side, be that as either fellow mourners or confidantes, should you need us,” Zavala promises. “We are here for you, Cayde.”

Cayde’s eyes immediately snap up to look at the Awoken.

This Zavala’s face is less burdened than the one that Cayde originally knew from so long ago. Less deep furrows across his forehead with the two smile lines on both sides of his mouth instead much more prominent. Even his posture is more slouched, if that is even possible, instead of the ramrod straight stance that he remembers his first Commander having both day in and day out, no matter the time or the weather or even the date.

But this Zavala is smiling down at him, hand still heavy and warm upon his shoulder, and almost against his will, Cayde feels the corners of his mouth twitch upwards in the smallest of smiles.

“Thanks, big guy,” he sighs and nods. “Really, I mean it.”

“We will see you later then, Hunter Vanguard?” Zavala’s eyebrow is raised in query and even as Cayde feels the chills from those two last words run down his spine he struggles to get out a nod anyway and gives the man a sloppy salute before going back to the reports.

* * *

His inauguration as Hunter Vanguard is a quiet affair handled right after Andal’s Wake where a million candles, if not more, have been collected to light up the Tower grounds in waves of soft, golden light.

Andal’s cloak, now cleaned of the blood and gore that clung to it when it was delivered by the Fallen, hangs from his shoulders and for the first time in a very long, long time, Cayde-6 actually feels like himself as the Speaker says words that he knows like the back of his own hand.

That it took the death of a good man to get there is his own burden to bear.

* * *

Years pass by, lines are still etched into his arms month after month, and after those are full he turns to the rest of his metal body.

The habit is too ingrained for him to stop now, but he is far more careful about it now than he was before his Vanguard days. As he has relived his Guardian youth time and time again, he seems to have forgotten just how perceptive his colleagues actually are.

Ikora means well, deep down he knows that she does, but when she tugs him aside a few weeks after he has been handed the title of Hunter Vanguard and quietly asks him to speak with her if he needs to get some things out of his systems, he recoils.

The marks are _his_!

Those marks are the only reason why Cayde still has any sort of sanity left inside of his fucked up head. He doesn’t _need_ her to realize that what he’s doing is wrong, he already knows that they are and that what he is doing is incredibly unhealthy.

“Cayde, if you need anything at all, _never_ hesitate to ask.”

They respect him more this time around than they did in the original timeline, the one where he had responded, quite immaturely too, might he add, to the task of being the Hunter Vanguard by shirking his responsibilities for well over a month before he actually went and got his shit together. It’s probably the only reason why Ikora even asks him such a personal question, but it is not something that Cayde wants to welcome. He can do this by himself, without the help of the Vanguard.

“It—everything’s fine, Ikora,” he spits out, surprising himself with how venomous he comes across, before excusing himself to do some ridiculously obscure task.

She doesn’t buy it for a moment, Cayde’s probably willing to put good glimmer on that, but nonetheless she lets him go, even if her hands linger over his gauntlets a bit longer than what is proper respect for personal space.

Cayde can’t even think straight as he’s heading out of the Tower, out of the City—he just needs to be somewhere where it’s just him, his Ghost and a good, old fashioned bonfire crackling out there in the woods.

Those marks are his last lifeline to a world long gone and he’ll be damned if anyone will take it from him.

* * *

The Chosen of the Traveler is a fucking Warlock, because of course they are.

_This time around_, his mind can’t help but whisper as Cayde watches the confused Exo stumble their way into the Hall of Guardians, following an excited Ghost who brags to anyone who will listen about the Archon that they’ve just brought to its knees and finished off in the middle of nowhere out in the Cosmodrome.

He shouldn’t be thinking like that, really shouldn’t wish that the Guardian that he will come to know, maybe even love, would be flesh instead of metal and a cunning Hunter instead of a world-wise Warlock.

But he can’t help it.

By now it's been well over seventy years since Andal has died, but the wound is slow to close and he quickly finds that he sees the ghost of his brother almost everywhere that he looks.

He didn’t have that the first time around.

Perhaps it is a byproduct of the Darkness that he has sensed coiling around the Last City for the past few decades, or perhaps it is simply something that only exists in his own head—he doesn’t know, and that is the long and short of it.

“Speak to the Hunter Vanguard, Warlock. He has information on the Cosmodrome that you might find useful,” he hears Ikora mention from behind the mountain of maps and supply lines that he is _quite busy with_, not that she cares in the least, the wretch.

His hand halts over the map that he is currently busy with.

No, he doesn’t mean that—he knows that she cares, maybe a bit too much, at times.

“Hunter Vanguard?”

The male Exo sounds almost cautious as he stops a few feet away from Cayde, more than willing to let him have some of that elusive personal space that seems to be far gone most days here in the Tower. Cayde almost doesn’t want to look up at him, too scared to see anything but what is actually standing right in front of him.

“Guardian?”

“Master Ikora told me to speak with you regarding the Cosmodrome. She said that you have quite the wealth of information on that particular area.”

“Well, well… _someone’s_ been dishin’ out compliments, I see,” Cayde grumbles and glares at Ikora over the top of the reports he’s surrounded by. “Not that she’s _completely_ wrong.”

He takes a chance and glances at the Exo.

‘Sleek’ and ‘aerodynamic’ are probably the first two words that spring straight into his mind as he looks at the fellow beside him. Probably just slightly taller than Cayde if he stands on his tippy toes, and painted a metallic silvery gray from top to toe. The two fins sticking out from either side of his head is just pronounced enough to be called ‘charming’ instead of ‘distracting’. His eyes and backlights are a bright purple, just sharp enough for the view to be slightly jarring, but other than that Cayde truly struggles to find anything obnoxious about the poor fellow. Anything more eye-catching than that is hidden beneath the ridiculously poof-y robes that the Exo is wearing.

All in all, unnervingly casual if a bit flashy. A dangerous combination in Cayde’s personal opinion, if a Guardians wants to go for a more subtle approach in their campaigns against the Darkness out there in the Sol System, but then again, who is he to judge if the man wants to look like a Dawning confection?

“So, anything you can tell me about the Skywatch?”

_Oh, could I ever…_

Cayde grimaces inwardly as he thinks of what lies below the Skywatch, thinks of RASPUTIN and all the shit that got unleashed the last time that someone fiddled with the AI’s personal man-cave.

This is going to be one for the history books, for sure.

* * *

His name is Acer-15.

Cayde spends the day obliviously drunk the moment that he learns it.

Knowing a Guardian’s real name makes it harder to blur the lines between personal and professional attachment. To Cayde, who sees Guardians come and go like leaves floating in the wind, it only serves to make it all that much harder to ignore if they go MIA or have a full RTL happen to them.

It’s never easy once you learn their names, and Cayde intends to drink his troubles away until they start making sense in his tired, weary head.

* * *

He refuses to see the Acer-15 as the Guardian, _his_ Guardian, who he’s guided through anything from the Black Garden to pick up Tevis’ bow, to help navigate the Dreadnought as Hive arcana pushed in from all sides to try and separate the two of them.

They’re—_he’s_—not that one special spark that Cayde has shared drinks with, they have none of Andal’s tenacity, none of the cheekiness that he adores in his Hunters, and all of this is incredibly unfair.

The Guardian comes back from so many things—Crota, the Vault of Glass, even takes down Skolas with Petra’s help.

Cayde can’t do it, he just can’t see them as the right one.

He just can’t fucking do it.

* * *

It’s evening and the Moon hangs in the sky above the Last City, lonely and cold and filled to the brim with Hive just waiting for a tasty Guardian to lose their way up there.

To Cayde, the Moon is everything that has gone wrong and right and so many things lately that he can’t quite follow. If he’s lucky, it’ll be the one to solve his problem too.

But he doesn’t mean that, not really. Even if the first Guardian he’s met again since everything’s started going to shit isn’t the one that he knows and wants back, it’s not as if the world will end if they do what his original Guardian did.

“Sir?”

The moment that he hears a voice behind him, Cayde bristles like a cat left out in the rain and is damn near ready to run whoever it is through, before Sundance interrupts everything by bursting into existence.

She would never do that if there was any danger, Cayde knows that. So, mournfully, he sheathes the knife that he is clutching.

“Something wrong, Cayde?”

It’s just Acer.

Cayde shrugs and scowls down at the millions of lights that flicker in the night beneath him.

“Dunno, jus’ in a mood, I s’pose.”

Oh, he’s in a mood, alright. A murderous, walking, talking disaster of a mood.

“Don’t know much about those, I’m afraid. Master Ikora says I need to work on the emotions, apparently I’m too ‘stoic’.”

“Eh, you’ll get there,” Cayde waves off as he reaches into his vest to pull out an old hip flask and take a swig of it. “You kinderguardians just need to find your feet is all.”

“If you say so.”

Acer comes up beside him and leans against the railing with his arms, fiddling with something in his hands.

“Found something out there in the Cosmodrome, y’know,” he eventually mutters and holds both of his hands still so Cayde can see whatever it is that the other Exo is toying with. It’s a Queen of Hearts. “Thought of you.”

Cayde swallows audibly as he reaches out to take the offered card. The woman depicted on there looks regal, overbearing, as she glances off to the side, holding a scepter and a delicate-looking fan. She looks like everything that Cayde wants and desires to have back once again.

“Yeah,” he forces out through gritted teeth. “Thanks, kid.”

He’s never wanted his Guardian—never wanted Andal—back more than he does right now.

* * *

The Guardian—Acer-15—dies.

Earth holds its’ baited breath as the Awoken Fleet engage with Oryx’s Dreadnought, wails as every Awoken soul is wiped out and all desperate eyes fall upon the Tower and the Guardians.

Acer is on it immediately, takes off in a blaze of glory with Cayde’s stealthdrive and Ikora’s faith, only for everything to come crashing down around their ears.

Something aboard the Dreadnought goes wrong and Oryx’s forces mobilize too fast for anyone on Earth to react before it is too late.

As Cayde watches the Hive sweep over Earth like a devouring shadow, he vaguely recalls Ikora’s cries of anguish when the last broadcasts of Acer’s Ghost reach them.

The Exo’s voice sounds absolutely desperate and scared beyond belief as he roars in defiance at the hordes of thrall that overwhelm him, and the last thing that comes through, before the feed cuts off abruptly, is the sound of torn metal as Acer’s screams change from anger to mercy.

Cayde doesn’t even need to look at the hordes of Hive that overwhelm him from behind to know that it won’t be long before he sees the cliff once more, arm blank and body ready once more to enter the Traveler’s service.

* * *

Cayde wakes up on a cliffside in the middle of the night and just lies there.

He’s back at the beginning once more. He’s back at the beginning with a blank arm.

Sundance watches silently as he screams into the ground and flings a large rock at the Moon hanging up there in the sky. She continues to watch silently as Cayde then goes on to scream every single obscenity that he knows at the natural satellite, only intervening when he is dangerously close to falling off the cliff’s edge.

To know that he has gotten so close, only to fail because of one fucking Guardian getting overwhelmed in the one place where they just couldn’t afford to lose is a kick to the face if he’s ever had one before. And he’ll have to do this again and again and a-fucking-gain until someone manages to crack the code the entire way through.

If it ever happens, it’ll be a goddamn miracle.

* * *

Cayde turns out to be right. He turns out to be _very_ right.

He doesn’t get it right the next time, nor the next few ones after that, for that matter. It always seems to boil down to him either being _too_ invested or not nearly invested enough, and it’s enough to start driving him absolutely spare.

It’s almost scary how little Fate needs to be twisted before everything goes irreparably wrong.

But he can’t escape whatever it is that he has gotten himself trapped in. He keeps having to relive his own turn at being a Kinderguardian, of running with Andal, losing Andal, getting thrown at the Vanguard-schtick—all of it running around in an endless loop that never really seems to get quite enough suffering out of him.

Sundance has no idea what kind of Guardian she awoke from the grave, and the guilt drips from him every time that he’s forced to let her inside of his head. Their first spat—in this latest incarnation, that is—was truly something.

“What is all this?”

The first time that it happens he is utterly unprepared for such a simple question and just blinks owlishly at his Ghost who is doing a truly impressive job at looking quite perplexed—overwhelmed by the information stored in his memory banks, probably.

“Uh… what?” is his very-much-impressive answer to his Ghost, but Sundance only flits around his head, as if everything he says is muted to her. “Sundance?”

“Who is Acer-15?”

Cayde shuts down, or something very close to it, at least. He just stares blankly at Sundance long enough for her to have a right proper fright, while his mouth-plates do their best to imitate a fish gasping for breath.

“It—he’s…”

He is storming out before she can say anything else, ignoring everything around him—even Sundance whose cries become louder and louder as he forces more distance between the two of them.

For all that he loves her, she is and always will be a nosy little shit.

* * *

He almost comes to like the Guardian when they are a Reefborn Awoken who’d rather shoot first and ask questions later.

She is almost the Hunter that he misses, that he keeps telling himself that he needs, but she dies in a blaze of glory against a once more-resurrected Taniks, taking the wretch out in an explosion seen all across the inner system.

What changes everything this time is that he only powers down the day after, willing himself to never wake again, and the darkness gladly takes him.

He’s scared, for the first time in a long, long while, Cayde is fucking scared.

The darkness does as he asks, and that means whatever is doing this to him in learning.

The darkness is out there, _learning_.

* * *

Cayde fails once more.

A terrorist attack in the Last City, of all things.

This time he’s always grateful for the new, fresh start, even if he has to start all the way back at the very beginning.

* * *

In the end it seems that the Traveler, or God, or whatever is watching over everything on Earth, take pity on him, because Cayde finally gets her back.

He gets his Guardian back.

It’s raining, just like the very first time that they met oh so many years ago now, and Cayde is for once _not_ buried in a mountain of reports that need sorting. Instead he has managed to wrangle Ikora into a _very_ distracted game of Go Fish, while Zavala shifts between sending Cayde disapproving glares and Ikora utterly confused ones, almost as if he cannot quite understand how he got her to agree to this in the first place. Shaxx is yelling, like always, whenever some poor schmuck drags themselves over to his little alcove, Eris is being her regular, creepy self and a steady stream of Guardians walk back and forth between the courtyard and the Hall of Guardians.

All in all, a very boring day indeed.

Cayde suppresses the yawn that is threatening to break free and instead focuses down onto the three aces in his hand. Ikora probably has the last one, he’ll bet anything that she does, but he can’t really ask for them since then she’ll be on to him and no one likes that, now do they?

Eh, fuck it, he’ll probably ask her anyway.

“Done strategizing over there, Hunter?” Ikora asks as she takes a quick glance at her own cards before returning to her datapad, typing in something at a frightening speed.

Cayde sticks out his tongue at her. “Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on over there, Rey. Got any aces?”

He wiggles his fingers at Ikora, grinning when she makes that little cute frown she always done whenever he’s being particularly frustrating, and snickers out loud when his opponent hands over the last ace. The ace of hearts stares back at him, lying innocently in his hand as the skies outside flash with lightning from the passing storm.

Cayde frowns.

Something’s not right. There is… something out there, hiding on the boundary of what he can sense with his Light, and chances are pretty big that it ain’t something friendly. No, scratch that, it’s _never_ something friendly, because apparently the City and its Guardians are highly allergic to anything even close to _resembling_ friendly.

It really fucking _sucks_.

So of course, in the midst of Cayde being distracted like a fucking four-year-old, a new Guardian wanders in, drenched to the bone, with the look of someone on a mission.

He doesn’t notice her, though, not at first.

He keeps looking out through the windows, his game of Go Fish with Ikora long forgotten as he places his cards on the table and instead slowly walks towards the fog-stained panes. The outside is dark gray and he can barely see more than twenty feet before it gets too dark for even his vision to pick up anything.

It’s almost like time stops around the two of them.

He can still hear the small noises of the Vanguard’s Hall around him, Zavala’s familiar rumble as he asks operators for reports on the City’s perimeters, Ikora’s soft murmurs with whoever it is she is keeping in contact with over her comm and datapad. But time, that is the one thing that almost slows to a complete halt when he sees something in the reflection, something that should not be possible, something that _couldn’t_ possibly be true.

Cayde turns around in an instant, and _that_ is when he sees her.

She looks just like he remembers her, dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin and a scared expression on her face, as if everything around her is awe-inspiring and enough to shatter everything that she thought she knew. Even as she stands there, dripping rainwater all over the floor and dressed in little more than barely-covering rags, she is still as magnetizing to behold as when he first met her.

She is here now.

For some inexplicable reason, Fate has seemingly decided to finally grant him a pause in the hellscape that has become his daily life, and instead grant him something nice for a change, some_one_ that he knows, that he can let down his barriers around, and he’ll love her for every moment that she is there.

And then it _hits_ him, like a million bricks all at once, that it’s _her_.

It’s her, his Guardian—it’s _Meera_.

Sundance’s fins twirl in the air as she shifts her eye between him and the newcomer, utterly confused by the elation and happiness that is swirling around inside his mind. Their minds connect briefly, just long enough for Sundance to be hit by the brunt of Cayde’s joy at seeing someone that he _recognizes_, and he almost lets out a chuckle as he briefly locks into eye contact with his Ghost.

_Do you get it now, ‘Dance?_

_Yeah, I think I do…_

Cayde’s eyes then lock onto Meera’s, and there is a tense moment where the two of them simply look at each other, until he spots her lower lip quivering and a glint of recognition in her eyes, and then he knows.

_He knows_.

It’s her—it’s his Meera, there is no doubt about it—and Cayde wastes no time in crossing the room to meet her, dragging her with him the entire way without a word as he ignores Zavala’s questions and Ikora’s raised brow, until they’re both safely hidden away in a remote corridor with no one around to interrupt them. It is only then, with shivering hands and an almost fearful expression on his face, that he slowly cards his fingers through her hair, looks her over with every single means that he has access to.

His finger pads trail over her skin and sends back a staggering amount of information, enough that Cayde has to take a moment to process everything, and even then it is almost still too much.

Finally, as she shuffles and lets out a soft whine, he opens his eyes once more, still not completely believing what he is seeing right in front of him. He has to ask, has to make sure that this is _real_ and not just some illusion that has taken hold of him.

“Meera?”

“Cayde?”

There are tears in her eyes as she looks up at him and her mouth keeps on opening and closing, almost as if she is trying to force out the words trapped in her throat.

“It’s really you?” she whisper-sobs and her own hand rises to press against his facial plates. “Cayde? It’s you?”

“Yeah,” he rasps out and presses his lips to the palm of her hand. “Yeah, it’s really me, Mee.”

“Oh, Light,” Meera sobs and her arms are around him in an instant. “You’re here.”

Automatically his own close in around her and he buries his face in her still-wet hair as she cries into his neck. He has no idea for how long the two of them stand there, him stroking her hair and just basking in her presence, and her making a rather valiant attempt at burying herself inside of his armor. There’s a hand fisted in the back of his—Andal’s—cloak, making itself known every now and then as she nudges closer against him. Cayde is sure as shit not complaining about _any_ of this development, but the fact of the matter still remains that Meera has recognized him, and if that has happened, then who else might?

Of course, Meera beats him to the questions.

She leans back and sniffles as she rubs her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her eyes are bloodshot and there are flushed spots on her cheeks as she looks up at him with wide, almost _scared_, eyes. “Cayde, what happened to you?”

He sighs and steps away from her. Almost automatically, the hand wrapped around her neck slides down to squeeze her shoulder instead, and Meera somehow manages to give him a meek smile as she latches on to the hand with surprising strength. He tugs at the hand briefly, but she only shakes her head firmly and steps closer to him once more.

Alright, no lack of contact until further notice it is, then.

“Shouldn’t I be askin’ _you_ that?” he questions softly and strokes her shoulder. “You’re the one who just woke up in the beginning—_your_ beginning, probably.”

Meera pales at his words and Cayde, almost automatically, tenses.

“How long?”

He should be over this, he really should, but the walls come screaming in from all sides in _seconds_. The openness, the easy way that they’ve always seemed to click just vanishes without warning, and he feels almost _cold_ as he stands there.

“Cayde,” she presses on nonetheless, “How. Long?”

Cayde scoffs and looks down at the ground, even as his hand never leaves Meera’s shoulder. “I dunno, how long as the Earth rotated ‘round the Sun?”

“Cayde, be _serious_,” Meera admonishes and steps closer to him, takes his hands in hers. “All of this is fucked up, this isn’t just something that we can shoot at until it goes away.”

Cayde’s scoff becomes a laugh.

“_Help me_?” he sneers. “No one can help me, not with this. One fuckup, _just one_, is enough for whoever is behind all of this to send me back right from the very moment that I opened my eyes as a Guardian, and then I’d have to relive all of this one more fucking time.”

“I watched you die,” she murmurs and Cayde just _stops_.

_Wait just a diddly damn minute there, please tell me you’re not—_

“I didn—”

“I was there with you,” Meera continues on as if he hasn’t even spoken. “I sat there in that… in that _fucking prison_ as you died, and I—and I d-did as you asked b-but everything fell apart a-and I—I—I was back in the beginning, and then I watched it again a-and again and again and aga—"

“Meera, please, just brea—”

“_YOU DIED, CAYDE!_”

Her voice echoes in the empty hallway and Cayde physically takes a step back in surprise. The tears are streaming down her cheeks now, even as she angrily rubs at them with her hands, and Cayde has no idea where he can even _try_ to place his own hands on her because she obviously needs comfort right now, even a fucking _idiot_ would be able to catch that, but he has no idea if it’ll even work.

“I watched you die,” she spits out as a well of fresh tears spill over. Meera stops rubbing at her cheeks and instead clenches her hands hard enough for blood to begin appearing. “Again and again and _again_. It just kept going in some sort of weird, fucked up loop until I just finish—”

Meera interrupts herself before she says anything else but Cayde nonetheless hones in on

“Meera,” he breathes, already dreading the answer that she’ll give him, no doubt about it. “What did you _do_?”

She looks at the ground, even as he tries to twist and turn her, as he tries to do whatever it will take for her to actually look him in the eye.

“Meera, _please_?”

“You kept dying in there,” Meera whispers brokenly as she stubbornly keeps her eyes trained on the floor right by his feet. “I—you jus—I saw that _bastard_ kill you off again and again and again, and I just couldn’t _stop it_!”

“Oh, Meera…”

Oh. Oh _no_.

He’s died more times than he can count, has been fucked over so many times because he just couldn’t accept that Andal had to die for everything to go the way that Fate intended, and this is the result, something that he could never have foreseen.

They’ve been linked.

All this time, the two of them have been linked, with both of them being sent back if either one or the other fucked up, probably.

Merciful Traveler above, all of the times where he has simply given up…

Cayde isn’t a human anymore, but that does little to make him resist the nausea sweeping over him as Meera’s words behind to process. Without another word he draws her in, this time as tight as he possibly can, and mutters soothing noises to her as a new bout of crying sets in.

“I am so sorry, Meera,” he whispers into her hair as he gently rocks her back and forth. “I am so, _so_ sorry.”

Because he _is_. He is so fucking sorry that any of this has happened. But him being sorry won’t make any of this magically disappear as if nothing ever happened, and it certainly won’t help fix this mess that he’s found the two of them in, but it can maybe be a start.

A much-needed start.

“I thought it would make it s-stop, Cayde,” Meera wails as her hand clenches the fabric of his cloak once more. “I thought it would make it stop but it _didn’t_. It just… it just reset everything.”

He feels his knees buckle beneath him and the sound of them crashing against the floor echoes in the hall, just like Meera’s earlier shouting did, but this time it is nowhere near as loud as that. Without a word he gathers her into his arms and drapes her across his lap, letting his mind go blank for just a moment as he wordlessly starts stroking from the top of her head down to her back and up again.

Again and again, he keeps up with the repetitive motion as Meera’s cries quiet down to the occasional sniffle. A comfortable silence falls over the two of them as she burrows closer, pressing her head beneath his chin, and Cayde simply lets her.

For the first time in over seventy years, much longer than that on the grand scale of things, Cayde allows himself to just… stop for a moment. He stops thinking, stops worrying, stops moving and just enjoys the quiet together with the best thing that has happened to him so far in this whole disaster.

“I don’t know what to do,” he eventually says when the silence becomes too stifling to endure any longer. “All I know is that I keep gettin’ sent back every time something apparently doesn’t go according to plan.”

“You won’t die this time around,” Meera says quietly and her lips press against his chin. “I won’t let you.”

“Listen, if I need to die, then—”

“I. Won’t. Let. You. Die.”

Cayde quiets down and so does Meera, the only noise being the subtle noise of their breaths.

“Oh stars above,” Meera suddenly groans and burrows closer.

Cayde’s brow plate lifts in confusion as he glances down at her. “What?”

“I just realized… Crota and Oryx are still alive at this point,” she spits out and the most adorable frown appears between her brows. “_Fuck_.”

It is such a sudden shift in conversation, a sorely needed one but still unforeseen, and Cayde suddenly bends forward as laughter bubbles up within him—it’s loud and just on this side of hysterical, but it’s laughter and he hasn’t needed to laugh more than right now for a very long time. It takes a little while before Meera is apparently infected by his sudden bout of mirth, but she too starts chuckling for a few moments before descending into deep belly-laughs that echo down the hallway, but this time it’s a happy echo instead of the dreadfully tense ones that have filled the corridor before.

He has her back, he has Meera back, and there’s no doubt in his mind that together they’ll figure this whole thing out.

* * *

They sit there in the middle of an abandoned hallway for quite a while. At least, long enough for Cayde to receive several messages on his comm from both Ikora and Zavala inquiring about his whereabouts and when he intends to return to the Hall of Guardians.

Sundance appears above the two of them, taking in the Guardian in his lap and the somewhat shellshocked appearance of her own Guardian before settling in the small nook in his scarf where she usually hides away on slow days.

“D’you have to go?”

Meera’s voice sounds like sandpaper is getting dragged across her vocal cords and Cayde winces in sympathy.

“Don’t really want to,” he grouches and leans the back of his head against the wall behind him. “Chances are that Zavala will come a’knockin’ if I don’t get my ass in gear.”

“Can’t have that, now can we?”

“Mhmm,” a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Plus, there’s the whole thing with me draggin’ you off to do who knows what in dark corners of the Tower that we’ll have to address as well.”

“Oh, fuck,” Meera mutters and drags a hand across her face. “I am too tired to deal with that shit right now.”

“Seconded like no other,” Cayde sighs but even so he nudges her off him and moves to stand. Meera is right behind him and immediately begins to dust off both of them. “Doesn’t make it a valid excuse to skip out on work, though.”

She stops for a moment, one hand hovering over his shoulder as she bites her lip as if in contemplation. “You’ve changed.”

Another rise of his brow plate occurs. “What d’you mean, ‘changed’?”

Meera’s hand rises up to rest against his cheek. “You weren’t like this before. Not this focused on your responsibilities, at least.”

Cayde’s curious face turns somber at her observation. “When you’ve seen everything go wrong as many times as I have, you get to a point where you just get tired, Mee. I got tired of actin’ up, it never did anything but make those around me angry.”

“That is surprisingly mature. Not sure how I like that yet,” she smirks and despite her words he is only met by a fond look.

“Eh, give it time to sink in,” Cayde grins and leans forward to press his lips to hers. “I’ll rub off on ya at some point, yeah?”

“Mhmm, I’m sure you will.”

“Now, come on. We have an internal relations disaster to unravel!”


	2. Meera I

It was meant to be an easy job.

Oh, Traveler help them, how did it end like this?

Meera stumbles over a piece of protruding debris on the floor and barely manages to catch herself on the wall before hitting the ground. Her entire body itches as if there are ants crawling beneath her skin, still twitching from the wave of Light that has just passed through both her and her Ghost, and she bites back a pained noise. Beneath all of her armor the sweat has drenched her undersuit, and her armor is chafing, but all of that is irrelevant.

That was Cayde’s Light.

Cayde’s Light passed through her just before, and Meera is scared out of her fucking mind for what that means.

“He’s fine,” Ghost chitters to her and nuzzles against the side of her helmet. “You know Cayde, he can survive anything.”

“But that was his _Light_, Ghost,” she whispers and raises a hand to caress his shell. “I—I don’t—what if he’s hurt?”

“Well, the sooner you get down there to him, the faster you can find out.”

Meera nods. She swallows heavily and glances out over the dark pit on the other side of the catwalks. There is still smoke and burning debris the entire way down to the lowest levels, and Cayde could be anywhere. The fact that he still hasn’t answered any of her attempts at contacting him… no—no, she’s reading too much into this, she _has_ to.

“He’s fine,” she repeats her Ghost’s words and stumbles on, delving deeper into the darkness of the Prison of Elders. “He’s fine.”

_He has to be_

* * *

Cayde is _not_ fine.

* * *

She screams his name when she first sees him.

There’s a shape standing above Cayde, a dark figure whose features are too far away for her to recognize, but they sure react to her appearance rather quickly.

“He didn’t feel a thing.”

Meera sees red.

Her gun is useless against the thick, reinforced metal that makes out the walls of the Prison, but it sure doesn’t stop her from emptying out a clip or two with every step that takes her closer to Cayde.

All she catches is the faintest smirk before whoever it is quickly steps behind an already-closing airlock, and then Meera is left with Cayde’s shattered, Ghostless body.

She rushes forward, falls to the ground by his side and keeps pressing her Ghost against the hole in his chest. Her hands are shaking and she can barely see through the tears that keep running down her cheeks and fogs up the inside of her helmet, but she doesn’t stop. As carefully as she can manage, Meera maneuvers Cayde’s head into her lap and she takes his hand in his.

The sound of his lungs working overtime to keep his systems going after the injury and the gentle squeeze from his hand really makes the finality of their situation take root.

There’s nothing she can do to stop this—there’s nothing that her Ghost can do to stop this.

There is simply nothing that anyone can do and Cayde is going to die.

“How’s my hair?” he grunts out and Meera chokes on the half laugh-half sob that wells up in the back of her throat when she hears his attempt at lightening the mood. “Mee?”

“I’m right here, Cayde,” she answers immediately and cups his battered cheek. “‘M right here.”

“This wasn’t… supposed to g-go this… this way.”

“I reckoned,” she agrees. When Cayde’s hand squeezes even tighter around her own she feels her lower lip begin to wobble. “Damn show-off.”

“Gotta…” he coughs and searing hot fluid splatters across the front of her armor. “Gotta… impress my girl somehow, y’know?”

“You never needed to,” Meera whispers and finally manages to wrangle off her helmet. She hurls it carelessly behind the two of them, barely paying attention to the racket that it makes when colliding with the flooring. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Hinds—” Cayde coughs once more. “Hindsight tends to make ya a mite smarter, yeah?”

“Just a bit,” she agrees and the tears well up once more when she sees the irregular flickering of his internal lights. “Oh, Traveler…”

“Hey, kid… it’s alright,” Cayde sighs. “I fucked up, alright? Gotta own up to my mistakes, yeah?”

“Not like this! Please, Cayde, you can’t jus—”

“Better me than you.”

“_NO_!”

Her scream startles her. Seems to startle Cayde too, for that matter. His eyes are comically wide for a moment before they soften, and the hand that is wrapped around her own travels up to her cheek instead.

“Meera,” he breathes out. It’s wheezy and keeps making Meera want to sob louder every time that she hears his lungs rattle. “Meera Quill, my favorite Guardian, loveliest Hunter this side of Saturn... it’s okay.”

“No,” she shakes her head vehemently. “No, no, no, no, _no_!”

“You’re goin’ places, kid. You don’t need your Vanguard to tell you that, but I’m gonna do it anyway, ‘cause fuck what I’m supposed t’do, ‘m dyin’.”

The noise that Meera lets out is not quite human.

“You tell… Zavala and Ikora,” Cayde continues feverishly as he catches her eyes. “The Vanguard… damn, but it was the best bet I ever—”

A seizure ripples through him and there is a moment where Meera finds herself almost eagerly awaiting the end of his sentence. Then, without a word, without any warning, Cayde’s eyes flicker out and his body becomes heavy and pliant in her arms.

“… Cayde?”

Her voice echoes in the hangar.

“C-Cayde, please, what did you want me to—” Meera cuts off herself when she feels the spread of more liquid beneath her—around her. She looks down at the grates and the flooring and her breath hitches when she sees just how much fluid has escaped.

Drums bang inside her head, whether it’s her pulse or just something inside her head she isn’t completely sure of, but it drums and drums and drums and drums, and her breath gets caught in her throat. Sweat breaks out across her skin, makes her hair stick uncomfortably to the clammy surface.

No. No. This is not happening.

“Cayde.”

No response.

“Cayde, please, what did you want me to tell them?”

No response.

“What did you mean?!”

No response.

“Guardian, I’m… I’m sorry,” Ghost says but Meera keeps shaking her head.

The drums, the drums continue to ring heavy and loud within her head, and at some point, she joins them.

She screams.

Meera grasps at her head, stained black with Cayde’s blood and _screams_. Bent over his body, sobbing hysterically with one hand fastened to the side of her head while the other is bunching up in the front of his ruined armor, Meera screams and wails. It echoes in the chamber and can undoubtedly be heard far and wide in the prison.

Fuck that. Let them hear her. Let them hear _everything_.

She has no idea of how long she sits there. Her Ghost tries to move her, tries to reestablish contact with the outside world, but everything was shut down before all of this went down and communications are in no hurry to reconnect anytime soon. The passage of time fades away as she sits there in the depths of the Prison of Elders, cradling the body of her Vanguard and lover, screaming until her lungs grow tired, and even then, continuing past exhaustion.

When she finally arrives at the scene, Petra’s vehement denial is drowned out by the wailing of a mourning Guardian.

* * *

Meera dreams.

She dreams, but this is not like the dreaming vision that the Traveler showed her when its Light was taken by the Red Legion. This vision is cruel, hard, cold—doesn’t leave behind a warm residue or gentle caress.

Meera shudders as the vision unfurls.

Teeth.

So many teeth. Sharp and pointy, surrounded by the searing stench of burnt ozone, a faint singing in her ear that doesn’t let up no matter how hard she presses her hands and fingers against her ears.

Teeth.

* * *

She startles awake.

Her head whips around to take in her surroundings, and she has a hand on the knife in her belt before she can stop the automatic reaction.

The person who has woken her up springs back with a snort, and Meera nearly reels when she sees who it is.

Cayde.

The Exo has a brow raised in question and makes a show out of sitting down beside her on the bench as slowly as possible, keeping a hand stretched out towards her the entire time.

“Hey there, kid, rough dream?”

Her mouth opens and closes like a fish heaving for breath on dry land, and her eyes are no doubt comically large, but Meera is beyond caring.

He’s here, safe, unhurt, right in front of her, and she does _nothing_ to stop her next reaction.

In the span of a moment she shoots off from the bench that she has been resting on in his ship and wraps around his neck with trembling arms. Letting out a shuddering breath that she wasn’t even aware of holding in, Meera buries her face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent of machine and oil and _Cayde_. If he is surprised by her sudden bout of affection, Cayde certainly keeps it well hidden, even if he _does_ stumble backwards for a moment and then proceeds to awkwardly pat at her back.

“Uh, not that I ain’t happy for reactions like that, but can I ask why?”

“You’re alive,” she hiccups out and buries her hands even firmer in the cloth of his scarf and cloak. “I—I thought that you—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he draws back and looks at her in worry. “You alright there?”

“Y-you were… I saw you d-d—” Meera cuts herself off and instead lets out a terrified noise. She can’t get the words out. She just _can’t do it_. Because saying them out loud would be the same as admitting that it happened, even if Cayde is standing right in front of her, currently holding on to her almost as tightly as she does to him.

Immediately Cayde’s arms are around her as well, this time much firmer and far more secure than before, and he begins shushing her as he lowers the two of them onto the bench once more. The soft cushions that Cayde has installed there sink beneath their shared weight, but neither says another word as he begins gathering her up in his lap and slowly rocks back and forth with her.

“Alright,” he murmurs slowly, drags the word out as his fingers begin to weave simple patterns across her skin. He keeps up a steady string of soft noises and words, voice rumbling low from his speaker, but it is enough for Meera to slowly unfurl from the vice-like grip that she has around his shoulders. “Theeeere we go, now. Easy does it, yeah?”

Her breathing is still erratic and she can’t stop herself from keeping one hand tangled up in his armor, reassuring herself that he is still _here_ and not lying dead on the floor with a hole in his chest and oil spreading out from beneath him. Meera lets out another terrified noise and Cayde doesn’t say a word as she huddles closer to him.

Bless his soul.

“You okay there, hero?” he looks down at her, no longer curious but instead rather concerned and it’s almost enough for Meera to break out in tears. “Kinda had me worried for a hot second.”

“Y-you were—”

He shushes her with a gentle murmur and insistent press to her lips before she chokes on her own words once more.

“Ain’t going anywhere, Mee,” he reassures and lifts a hand to run his fingers across her hair. He takes a hold of one of her hands and presses it against his chest. Even through his armor she can feel the steady hum and vibration of his main core. “Still alive and kickin’, and I actually intend to keep it that way for quite some time.”

Meera doesn’t say anything. She keeps burrowing closer and can’t stop her hands from pressing against him, reaffirming the fact that she can feel him, _alive_, beneath her touch.

Cayde sighs and presses a kiss against her head. Meera stills automatically and then turns her eyes to look up at him, pleadingly. She lurches up from her seat in his lap and hungrily presses her mouth against his, and Cayde is quick to reply in kind.

She shudders when Sundance’s chirping voice announces that they have arrived at the Prison and holds on as tightly as she can when Cayde attempts to move away.

“Meera?”

“Cayde, can we—I mean, do you think—” she cuts off herself and looks down at the ground. Her throat feels tight, as if there is a heavy, hard lump hiding beneath her skin, and she wrings her hands nervously.

“Hey, c’mon, everything will be fine,” Cayde grins cheekily and winks at her. “It’s just a prison riot, we’ll be home in time for tea and cookies.”

“You don’t even _drink_ tea, Cayde.”

“Don’t ruin my dastardly heroic speeches, Quill,” he snipes back at her and breaks out into a wide grin before reaching out for her hand. “Hey—hey, look at me for a sec, a’right?”

She does. Reluctantly as all Hell, but she does.

Cayde looks at her imploringly. “If there’s somethin’ bugging you, tell me, yeah? Partners tell each other if something’s wrong.”

“I-I know.”

“So is there?” he raises a brow-plate. “Something wrong, I mean.”

Meera looks down and bites her lip.

“Promise—” she forces out and looks up at him with pleading eyes. “Promise me, you’ll be careful.”

Cayde smiles. It’s wide and bright and so very much like Cayde, but even so Meera still notices how it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Of course, I will. Cross my heart,” he says and presses one last kiss to her mouth.

She wishes that she could believe him.

"Got your sidearm?"

"Yeah."

"Good," he raises his Ace of Spades, "Now, let's go to prison!"

* * *

It repeats.

“Please jus—you can’t die!”

* * *

And repeats.

“_CAYDE_!”

* * *

_And repeats_.

* * *

She wants to scream but who would hear her prayers? Who would deign to grant her mercy from this damn Hell that she is trapped in?

* * *

In one instance she manages to change it.

Mentally asking her Ghost to stay with Cayde no matter what, she is off before Petra has even managed to explain the situation, darting through waves of Fallen, Vex, Hive and Cabal and jumps off the edge of the catwalks before either of them can stop her. Meera knows where they are, those twisted caricatures of Fallen that has taken Cayde from her again and again and again, just as she knows who is responsible for them doing it.

Uldren.

Uldren fucking Sov.

Cayde is screaming her name the entire time until the comm-link between them shorts out from the feedback.

Meera doesn’t hesitate for a moment, not even when he manages to reestablish contact between the two of them and immediately orders her to get back up there.

“_Supermax ain’t no joke, Quill! Get your Nightstalking ass right back up here, pronto_!”

She doesn’t answer him. Grits her teeth and swears when her landing results in a broken ankle.

“_QUILL_!”

He’s furious with her, she can tell. She is beyond caring, though.

Meera cocks her gun and stalks off in a blaze of Void and Light, daring—beckoning those wretched creatures to attack her.

And find her they do.

* * *

The taste of iron and copper is thick in her mouth and she spits on the ground to clear it, but the action is futile.

Uldren holds the barrel of her gun beneath her chin and forces it up, forces her to look upon him. He smiles at her, as if what he has done is a good thing, as if he is to be applauded for his actions.

“I had anticipated such idiocy from the Hunter Vanguard,” he croons and sits on his hunches to maintain eye contact. “Not from the esteemed Godslayer of Earth.”

“People are just full of surprises, aren’t they, your Majesty?” she grits out as she manages to push herself up with her arms. “Just like you.”

“Quite,” he agrees and his smile grows wider. “I rather like you, human. Despite your obvious deficiency what with being a Guardian, you do show proper respect to your betters. In another life I would surely have enjoyed your employ.”

“Good to know that my Fireteam didn’t completely fuck me over when I asked them about Awoken etiquette, then,” Meera groans. The weak, overtaxed muscles in her arms buckle beneath her weight and she collapses by Uldren’s feet.

Getting thrown through a wall or two really does mess with your body, be it wrapped in armor or not. Who’d have known?

In her ear the sound of Cayde’s voice, cutting off every now and then from the static-y comm, finally gets through. Her head is still ringing from the treatment that the bigger one of those Fallen gave her earlier and she cannot quite make out the words, but it appears that Uldren certainly can, if his wicked smile and eerily black and golden eyes are anything to go by.

Gently he cups her cheek before ripping out the comm from her ear and holds it close to his mouth.

“I had been anticipating our reunion, Cayde-6,” he murmurs into the comm, and Meera blinks drowsily when everything grows silent.

The only audible noise is the occasional chitter from the Fallen that are gathered behind Uldren in the shadows.

Whatever Cayde says back to Uldren has the Awoken prince laugh. The sound makes something cold run down Meera’s back.

“Oh, there is no need for such vigorous threats, my dear Vanguard,” Uldren _tsk_’s and stands, the gun sliding against her skin from beneath her chin and then points directly at her. “I would love to continue our chat in person, but as someone who has a schedule to keep, I am rather pressed for time.”

He moves away and for a moment Meera almost believes that everything will be okay, that Cayde will be safe and sound and no one will die.

Meera is _wrong_.

“All I have left to do here would be an incentive for you to come say goodbye a little faster, yes?”

Her eyes widen as Uldren tightens his grip on the trigger, and her screams rings in the air when he puts a bullet through her chest. The comm is exploding with roars and curses as he lowers it down to where she has collapsed against the floor and puts it back into place in her ear.

“Until next time,” he makes a mock of a salute to her as he steps backwards through an airlock and disappears.

Meera wants to scream. She’d do it, too, if her lungs weren’t busy getting full of blood.

“C-Cayde,” she wheezes and the comm is silent. “C-Cayde, a-are you… are you there?”

“_We’re almost there, Meera, just hang on!_”

Easy for that damn bastard to say, she can feel everything grow heavier with every heave of breath that she forces through her desperate lungs.

“_Damn it, Petra, get that fucking thi_—fuck!” Cayde’s voice explodes in the comm once more, and through the hazy fog around her mind, Meera hears something bang in the distance. It echoes. “_Almost there, Mee_! _We’re almost there_!”

* * *

She never finds out if they make it to her in time. The dark takes her before then and when she wakes once more, it is onboard Cayde’s ship en route to the Prison once more, and she bends over, screaming.

* * *

When they fall down together in a blaze of glory, all Meera can think about is that she is right there with him, that together they can survive this hellhole.

When they are both felled in battle, both watching as Uldren crushes their Ghosts beneath his feet, that is when Meera begins to feel the first cracks appear.

She didn’t want to admit it the first time that she was returned back to the beginning of the end, but even so the truth forces itself forward, and as she begs for them to spare him, to spare Cayde, she almost longs for the bullet in Uldren’s chamber to find its way into her heart, her head—somewhere that will make her fall and momentarily be free from this vicious cycle that she has found herself trapped in.

* * *

“—_me in, Meera! Meera, it’s Zalli, for fuck’s sake! Are you there?! Meera?!_”

The scratchy noise of her comm coming back online startles her. Through the tears that are blinding her, Meera slowly raises her hand to cup her ear. The comm device is still nestled in there, a bit hot to the touch, but still functional.

Looks like her distress calls finally came through. The last fucking time that she will do this, of course this is when they come through.

“Z-Zalli?”

“_Oh thank the Traveler, she’s alive, Tora! Meera, where are you? Your Ghost has been sending us distress signals for the past three hours, and it’s been impossible to get through to you. Where are you and the Hunter Vanguard loca—_”

“They killed him,” she cuts off Zalli without hesitation as she looks down at Cayde’s body in her lap, strokes his mangled face-plating as carefully as she possibly can. Her voice sounds like someone has rubbed sandpaper against her vocal-cords. “He’s gone, Zalli.”

“_What are you talking about, Quill? Who’s dead_?”

“They killed him, Zalli. I couldn’t get there in time and now he’s… he’s d-d—” Meera’s voice cracks in the end as she descends into loud, hysterical sobs.

Faintly in her ear she can hear Zalli’s frantic voice attempting to get an answer out of her while still trying to get a read on her location. But even so she shakes as she desperately tries to bring Cayde’s body closer, uncaring that oil and internal fluids from his systems are getting smeared all over her armor and weaponry. Her thumb leaves a sticky stain on his un-marred, right cheek.

“I can’t—I can’t do this anymore,” she mumbles and continues to just look at Cayde’s still body in her arms. “Please, you can’t keep doing this to me, Cayde.”

Zalli’s voice has grown in volume now, he’s outright screaming at her. Meera just pulls out the comm from her ear and doesn’t even look as she hurls it over her shoulder. A small _ping_ from somewhere behind her reassures her that it’s far away for now.

Her hands are shaking as she pulls out her gun and swallows as she looks it over. It’s a sidearm, small and compact enough to generally go undetected and practically standard wear for all Hunters these days. Also allegedly powerful enough to blow the head off a Cabal Phalanx if the opportunity should ever come up, even if she's never tested it herself. Officially these sidearms are illegal as all Hell, something to do with kitbashed weaponry generally being heavily frowned upon by the Consensus.

Cayde saw to it that the Hunters got them anyway. Even if the rest of the Vanguard remained in the dark about this probably illegal gun, he truly gave it his all where the safety of his Hunters was concerned.

This couldn’t continue—_she_ couldn’t continue with this. Seeing this happen over and over again, she keeps feeling that desperate hope, even if she knows that it is foolish to cling on to it in the first place. Cayde is dead, and will continue to be dead no matter what she’ll do.

This won’t change anything.

She’ll only wake up onboard his ship once more.

This won’t change _anything_.

“Guardian, what are you—_Guardian_!” her Ghost screams at her when he catches her ready the barrel of the gun against her forehead.

Meera grunts in annoyance when he slams into her hand holding the gun, and her grip tightens. The trigger feels slippery, even through her gloves, and everything around her shrinks down to just her and her gun and the darkness around her.

“Meera, stop this! This won’t solve anything, please just put the gun down!” her Ghost is pleading with her and Meera feels her eyes sting from unshed tears beneath her eyelids.

“I can’t do this anymore, Ghost. I wish that there could be another way, but—” she whispers and bites back the sob stuck in her throat as she presses the gun firmer against her skull. “I’m sorry.”

She pulls the trigger.

_I’m sorry_


	3. Cayde II

Sundance’s Guardian is… special.

That is the only word that she truly feels actually encompasses what he actually is, how he works both inside and out.

Because Cayde—“Who-cares-about-what-reset-I’m-on-anyway-normalcy-is-fucking-stupid”—6 is special. More special than any other Guardian she has ever had the chance to talk to, or even just meet in general. To Sundance, Cayde is a never-to-be-solved riddle that makes him far more interesting than that weirdo Osiris and his cult of prophesies. It makes him more interesting than Rezyl Azzir’s various accomplishments in his glory days, before the Titan turned to the Darkness and became Dredgen Yor. It makes him more precious than even the cutest of kinderguardians out there.

Because her Cayde has seen the future, has seen what is to come, has seen both hers and his final death.

And that makes him precious, makes Sundance’s job of keeping him alive just that much more important. Because if Cayde is right with even _half_ of the things that he has told her time and time again after nightmares and new rezzes where everything is frantic and confusing and when he is barely able to tell white from black from gray, then they are going to need every single Guardian that they can spare.

She looks at her Guardian as he smiles and jokes with Andal Brask, sees how happy and carefree he tries to be for Andal, for his brother, even though both of them know that it will be nothing more than a fleeting moment in his life as a Guardian. Because Cayde has told her how it ends, no matter how many times he tries.

Andal Brask always dies.

The man most certainly deserves better than ending his second life at the end of a Fallen mercenary’s blades, but as Cayde has told her time and time again, “Fate is one crafty bitch, and this one ain’t somethin’ that I can outrun, ‘Dance.”.

But that doesn’t mean that she likes it—that she _accepts_ it.

Cayde needs to be protected, Sundance can understand that, even if Cayde himself is far from fond of the idea. He doesn’t see it, or maybe he just can’t, but he needs to survive as far as he can. He needs to live long enough to meet his Guardian once more, the real one and not those other ones that she knows causes him pain.

He showed her a memory of a wrong Guardian once. The First.

An Exo, just like himself, but a Warlock with more stunted emotions than the redjacks that Shaxx usually has around to help with the Crucible.

To Sundance, at first it all seems like nothing more than a fanciful lie crafted in the innermost processors and memory chips that Cayde’s head consists of beneath all the plating. To her it seems impossibly cruel of the Traveler, her Creator, to trap someone in a loop like this where they are forced to relive a part of their life again and again until they are just about ready to explode from it all.

Because Cayde _shows her_.

As a newly Risen there should not be any memories within him, only foggy fragments at best because of him being an Exo, but instead she finds millions of different directions to go in when he invites her to have a peek inside.

She sees him fall in love, hate, find a friend in Andal Brask. She sees him fall in love once more in a human woman, a Hunter, who he apparently looses again. She sees him do terrible things and wonderful things and necessary things. She sees him try to protect her, his Ghost, from what he knows. She sees him finally include her in what he knows.

And she sees him struggle with a knowledge that only he can know. Only Cayde, and now her, knows what will happen in the future, and it all depends on doing exactly as the first time that he was being brought back.

Therefore, when she sees how he lights up at the sight of that woman once more, when he finally registers her enter the Hall of Guardians, she can’t help but sigh in relief.

She knows just how much he needs something to hold on to, no—some_one_.

Here’s to hoping that this time they’ll get it right.

* * *

As a matter of fact, there is indeed an internal relations-shaped disaster waiting for the two of them when they return to the Hall of Guardians.

A disaster that appears to have taken the particular form of one Commander Zavala, as Fate would have it—and Cayde knows Fate for the bitch that she is, right alongside her sisters Destiny and Lady Luck. A right trio of fuckery if there’s ever been one, and he hates to love the three of them immensely for it.

Meera slows her steps and Cayde automatically adjusts his own gait to match her as she leans up towards his face. “Before we go meet our Final Death over there, got any good advice for a baby Guardian?”

“Share with your Ghost what happened, Mee,” he mumbles to her as the two of them walk through the automatically opening doors, glancing about at the workers eyeing them not-too-subtly. “It’ll save us all no small amount of grief, and you won’t have to think about continuity errors.”

“Talking from experience, Sir?” she shoots back, voice just _this_ side of snarky and just how he likes it.

“Nah, just lookin’ out for my favorite Guardian, that’s all.”

“Favoritism already from my very first day back? Why, Sir, I’d have to report you for blatant favoritism within the ranks.”

Meera’s quip is delightfully unexpected, and Cayde struggles to contain himself as he chokes on his own laughter. He only results in butchering the noise into a static-filled monstrosity that has a few curious people wince.

_Ha_, serves them for snooping in on his conversations. But, dear oh dear, his poor, poor voicebox.

It seems, however, that his small attempt to alleviate the tension only serves to aggravate the vicious lion looming ominously in the back of the hall.

“Zavala!” Cayde grins and throws a hand up in the air as a greeting, the other one slung around Meera’s shoulder as if nothing is wrong. “You look a mite tense there, buddy.”

It really should not be possible, but the furrow between Zavala’s brows somehow deepens. Cayde pats himself internally on the back for that one. Might very well be a new record.

“I do believe that an explanation is in order here, Hunter Vanguard.”

Oooh, Cayde’s definitely in trouble if his title is being used instead of his name, he knows that much. And really, he shouldn’t have expected anything else but this receival with the way that he just stormed out with a kinderguardian in tow, stars and hearts in his eyes as if he’s mad with love. So, unless Cayde has a damn good idea up his sleeve, not to mention more than ready for presentation straight away, he might as well kiss those wonderful report-less days goodbye until Zavala’s gotten everything that he wants out of him.

A different reality might be his new home for now, but that doesn’t mean that his tastes for punishments have changed _that_ much.

“A friend you’d like to introduce, Cayde?” Ikora buds in from where she stands, her attention mostly still on the datapad in her hands.

Cayde’s hand tightens around Meera’s shoulder almost unconsciously but he refuses to allow a single tell of his to peek through. “An old scout of mine, lost contact with her little over a year ago and she only just recently managed to get back to Earth.”

Ikora’s attention is now firmly on the two of them. “Oh? Where were you stationed?”

Meera looks more than a little shellshocked at seeing the entire Vanguard up and close, together again, and only gets out a few stammers before Cayde deigns to sweep in and save her from embarrassing herself even more than she already is.

“Sorry, Ikora,” Cayde cuts in, grin stretching out to something almost vicious. “Afraid that’s, ah, _classified_.”

“Classified?” Ikora’s brow rises. “Even from your fellow Vanguard?”

_C’mon, Cayde, time to put your money where your mouth is…_

His shoulders square up. “Until I know if it’ll do more harm than good, damn straight it is.”

She isn’t happy, anyone with a working pair of eyes can see _that_, but Ikora appears to accept it and instead turns her full attention back onto her precious datapad once more.

Now, _Zavala_ on the other hand…

“I will refrain from asking further questions at the moment, _Hunter Vanguard_,” he grits out, eyes narrowed from suspicion and one hand beginning to clench worryingly. “But do not think that this discussion is even close to over.”

“Wouldn’t count on it, Big Guy,” Cayde’s smile widens and he gestures to Meera beside him. “Now, if ya’ll excuse me, I’ve got a new baby Guardian to reintroduce to the Tower.”

* * *

Registering her into the database and granting her an access key to one of the housing units is honestly nothing but a formality. Cayde has her in and out of the registration offices in less than ten minutes, and they spend the rest of the day on top of the Tower’s roof in one of the surveillance blind spots with a few bottles of pilfered alcohol from one of his secret stashes hidden around the complex.

Together they watch the sunset, curled into each other as the sky is painted a million different shades of orange, pink and purple. They don’t head back until the moon is on its way across the sky and the stars are peeking out from the dark expanses above them, and even then, neither of them can truly sleep.

“I should… head to the barracks.”

The two of them are standing at an intersection, one path leading to Cayde’s Vanguard Quarters, the other to the Hunter Barracks.

“Or, y’know, you could stay. With me, I mean.”

Stars above, he’s a right charmer this time around.

“Is that wise?” Meera’s eyebrow rises. “Already taking women to bed now, Hunter Vanguard?”

“I honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck right now, if I am being totally honest here, Mee,” he says and steps closer, ducks his head down to busy himself with light, gentle kisses against her cheek, her forehead, her nose—just every part of her skin that he can get away with. “You’re back, and trust me when I say that I am fuckin’ _ecstatic _‘bout that, but there are a fair number of far more productive ways we could spend the night. ‘M just sayin’.”

“I bet that’s what you say to all the guys and gals out there.”

“Nope, just my favorite Guardian,” Cayde smirks and _boop_s her nose with the protruding plating between his eyes. She giggles in delight, and Cayde immediately goes in for the kill—getting busy pressing his lips as tenderly as possible to hers.

It still makes him reel, the fact that she’s actually _here_. Every part of him tingles like he’s been hooked up to a direct source of Arc energy from the moment that he presses against her, and it only intensifies when both of Meera’s hands sneak up to grab fistfuls of his hood. She is so wonderfully pliable beneath him, moves with him as if they are directly linked together, and eagerly presses back against his lips, nipping and caressing with everything she’s got.

It’s enough to get high on.

“We should,” he gets out when she draws back for air. “Get back to,” more kisses. “My room.”

Meera makes a low sound in the back of her throat, an agreeing noise, and Cayde wastes little time standing there in the hallway where anyone could potentially see them. He drags her down familiar halls, stops more often than not to press hungry kisses against every single patch of skin that he can get his lips on, and Meera gives as good as she gets herself with fingers trailing across his shoulders, digging into the spaces between his plates, finding all of the old spots—and some news ones too, while she’s at it—that she knows from before.

It’s a relief for both them—and probably their Ghosts as well—when they finally slam into Cayde’s door, practically incapable of keeping their hands off each other. He begins to feverishly type in the access code, only to get quite distracted when Meera’s questing fingers dip beneath his chest armor and immediately splay out across his abdomen.

“N-need to—_ah_!” he yelps as she bites gently against the synthetic skin that covers his neck-area and begins scratching his abdomen. “_Quill_!”

“Hurry it up, old man,” she mutters and soothes the skin-mesh she’s been biting at with a lick from her tongue. “I’m _waiting_.”

“Traveler above, woman,” Cayde grumbles good-naturedly. “I’ll show you old man!”

The door finally opens up and he immediately hauls her inside, practically attacking her lips with his own the entire way down to his bedroom.

Clothes are half ripped off-transmatted off in seconds as they hit the bed, bouncing slightly on the mattress as the two of them get busy with reacquainting themselves with each other.

Calm settles over him as easily as heady desire, and for one perfect moment there is only the two of them, a bed, a want and all the time in the world. His hands come to a rest on her cheeks and he holds both of them still, just uses the time to look up in her eyes.

“You’re actually here.”

“I am,” she nods and turns her head to press a searing kiss into his palm. “I’m here, and I’m never leaving you again. _I promise you_.”

Strands of hair fall between them and obscures Cayde’s until-now wonderful view of Meera, which obviously cannot be allowed to continue. One of his hands leaves her cheeks to instead grab at the tendril and push it back behind her ear with care. Almost automatically his hand tangles in her hair, bunching it up behind her skull as he presses her down to him once more. However, instead of a kiss he simply holds her there against him, registers the heat of her body against him, takes in the heady breaths she draws, revels in the faint sound of her heartbeat that his sensors can pick up.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again,” he rumbles, still caressing her cheek with one hand. “Thought I’d only ever get someone else.”

“But what if they’d have been able to do it?” she mutters back to him, lips thin. “I was in the right spot at the right time, and it might as well have been some other Guardian walking through those doors with that exact Ghost at that exact time.”

“It wouldn’t have been right,” he denies. “It wouldn’t have been _you_.”

“I’m not that special, Cayde.”

“You are, though,” he frowns at her words and raises his head just enough to kiss her once more. Honestly, he could get drunk off her kisses—he’ll never grow tired of either giving and receiving them. “You _are_ that special. To me, you are, at least.”

“You’re sweet,” she laughs and to Cayde it sounds like _bells_. “You’re sweet and a sap and I love you for it, but, really… I’m not that special, Cayde.”

Cayde narrows his eyes, making the faint blue light in the room fade just a tad, before he makes a sudden shift. With a startled grunt Meera rolls along with him and ends up on her back against the mattress, looking up at him in surprise.

“Cay—”

“You’re wrong,” he bites out. “You’re fuckin’ _wrong_, y’hear?”

“Cayde, what’s gotten into yo—”

“You’ve had to relive that fucking prison again and again, and I would never wish that shit upon _anyone_,” he starts and watches how Meera’s face immediately darkens at his words. “But, Meera… you’re the first thing that’s gone right for me in who even knows how long. I was ready for Destiny to just fuck me over one more time and give me someone that I didn’t want saving my ass, but that didn’t happen. I got _you_. Whoever’s presiding over this whole fuckfest of a disaster actually gave something back for once, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.”

“We don’t know why this happened,” she swallows and traces her fingers across his face. “For all we know, this is just an illusion. It could be the Darkness that’s finally come to kill us all once more.”

Cayde lets out a deep chuckle. “Well, if this is the afterlife, then I sure ain’t got no complaints.”

He bends down to kiss her and gets a firmer hold around her body. Her lips are pliant against his, and he feels them sneak into a small smile as their shared kisses grow hungrier, more ravenous for each other.

“Never leave,” he grunts and presses against her. “_Promise_!”

Her answer is a keening noise when he presses into her body, and her arms wrap around him even tighter as the world shrinks down to just her and him and this bedroom.

Meera is back again.

Nothing can go wrong.

* * *

He’s woken up by one stubborn beam of early sunlight that has somehow managed to get past his curtains.

There is a moment where Cayde remains blissfully unaware and honestly would like nothing more than turning over so he can catch a few more minutes before he actually _has_ to get up and, y’know, do his damn job. But then he turns over and is met by a very bare, very _human_ and very female back.

For a moment there he just… stares. He just looks straight at the back of his bedpartner for a few more moments until his processors finish having their little hysterical fit and actually reminds him, not unkindly, of everything that’s transpired the day before.

Oh.

Oh.

O_h_

_Oh_

_Oh, sweet Traveler above, she’s back_!

Cayde scrambles—there’s really no other word for it—and somehow manages to get even more twisted up in his bedsheets than he already is, before faceplanting into his pillow.

With a muffled curse and scowl directed at the offending object, Cayde wrangles himself somewhat loose just in time to see that lovely back turn around to reveal a very sleepy, ridiculously adorable Guardian.

Meera blinks blearily from the sharp light illuminating their shared bedroom. Her nose wrinkles in distaste of the abrupt awakening, and Cayde finds himself mesmerized for a moment at how expressive her soft, organic face really is. She searches for a moment before finally settling her eyes on him, and she smiles.

Cayde can’t help it, he just smiles back immediately.

“Mornin’,” she croaks out and shuffles closer, mumbling affirmingly when she drapes herself over his torso beneath the covers. Cayde’s breath hitches when she presses her lips to his sternum. “Sleep well?”

“Y-yeah, actually,” he frowns and raises a hand to caress her back, letting it drift above the cover aimlessly. “I actually _did_ sleep well.”

Meera’s head lifts up from its spot on his chest. Even though the two of them must have gotten at least six or seven hours of sleep down, her lips are still slightly puffy from their nocturnal activities yesterday.

Cayde is never going to admit it to anyone for as long as he lives, but he saves _that_ particular vision a couple hundred times on his internal backup servers.

“You don’t sleep well?”

Good Lord, but she’s adorable when she frowns like that.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head ‘bout that now,” Cayde shushes her and leans up to press a soft kiss against the corner of her mouth. “It’s way too early to think.”

Meera’s nose scrunches up as she looks around, only to scowl and let out a curse when the turn of her head results in getting blinded. Before he can even think about it, Cayde lets out a snicker over her predicament and immediately reaches behind him to throw a pillow at her.

“_Cayde_!”

“Lie down and get some damn shuteye,” he admonishes even as he rolls out of bed. “Some of us can’t be fresh-as-daisies Kinderguardians, who get to report in at a later hour.”

“Fuck off and get back here,” Meera grumbles beneath the pillow in her face. “You’ve taken all the warmth with you.”

“Not my problem anymore, sweetheart,” Cayde groans and bends down to at least attempt at finding the pieces of his clothing that he threw around last night. “Damn, but you’re needy in the morning.”

“Who do you think enabled that?” is her smug reply, and when Cayde turns around it is to see her lean against the small mountain of pillows that makes up the headboard of his bed, flushed breasts just barely covered by the duvet and a sleepy but still incredibly amused expression painted on her face.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, browplate raised in query.

“You,” she nods at him and stretches beneath the covers. Cayde’s eyes shamelessly linger at the arc that her back makes. “You being all responsible and refusing to slack off, _that’s_ what funny.”

“Brat,” he mumbles affectionately as he gathers up his vambraces from the floor before heading over to kiss her forehead. “Go back to sleep, Mee. I’ll see you on the bridge later.”

She catches his hand before he can completely pull away and manages to haul him in for a searing kiss. Cayde is certainly not protesting, but he realizes that he needs to get going when Sundance’s chittering inside his head starts to become _unbearably loud_, and reluctantly he draws back and away from Meera’s grasping hands and pleading lips.

She looks incredibly disgruntled when he manages to pull free, even as Cayde gives her a longing look before he finally leaves the Vanguard Quarters.

“Traveler above, I’d forgotten how she usually is in the morning,” he mutters as he stalks down the hallways.

Sundance laughs the entire way to Tower Command.

* * *

To Cayde, it is almost scary how fast the two of them fall into sync with each other and with this somewhat brave new world that they find themselves in.

Having his Guardian back in his life does more to lift Cayde’s spirits than he will _ever_ admit out loud. The reassuring knowledge of knowing that he will always be able to check in on her through her Ghost or by dropping by the Hunters’ Quarters in the Tower is as pacifying for his state of mind as it is cathartic to know that finally something _good_ has come from all of this shit.

Of course, she ain’t _Andal_, but Cayde has after a long, long time finally come to the conclusion that Andal won’t ever live long enough to see this—to see the Tower as it is now with the Darkness encroaching, the Black Garden, Crota and even Oryx by the end of all this.

It is far from the ideal world that Cayde tends to fantasize about in the few quiet moments that he gets, but it’s the truth and it is something constant that he can cling to.

If Ikora or Zavala take note of his change in behavior, how he smiles and jokes easier, they sure don’t show it. He’s fine with that, completely fuckin’ _fine_. This is _his_ life and _his_ choices, and there ain’t no way in Hell that they’ll take this away from him. He’s had enough of that by now, thank you very much.

He wants this to be the one. Traveler, how he wants this to be the one where he succeeds in whatever it is that he’s meant to do here.

Cayde looks down at the map of the Cosmodrome drawn up on his handheld that he’s been checking over with regular intervals. There are no news popping up in his feed, and usually that is a sign of good news, but Meera and her newly formed Fireteam has still been out in the field for more than three days by this point, and he hasn’t heard a single peep from her since their departure earlier this week.

Sundance suddenly blinks into existence over his shoulder and Cayde glances up from the battered old maps that he is actually supposed to study for new possible vantagepoints, but in reality, is nowhere _near_ done with.

“What?”

“Message from Meera,” his little buddy chirps. “Something about Fallen not being very good at switching up hiding places and also a request to prepare for cleanup when she comes back. Apparently, she’s found something out in the Cosmodrome.”

“Found somethin’?” Cayde’s brow-plate rises in curiosity as he reaches for his cup of coffee and takes a sip. “And what, pray tell, might that be?”

“I don’t know whether to believe her or not, but her Ghost informed me that they’re bringing in the heart of a servitor.”

Cayde’s coffee is immediately spat out.

Zavala looks over from his work station with an expression that promises nothing short of dreadful murder if any of that coffee makes its way onto the various papers strewn across his part of the Vanguard Table, while Ikora quirks an eyebrow at Cayde’s antics.

“She said _what_?”

“You heard me. Your new Guardian just broke into the Devils Lair, and she’s bringing back its Servitor.”

Sundance, bless her Light, means well—Cayde _knows _that—but sometimes she really needs to control her damn volume.

Both Ikora and Zavala have abandoned all pretenses of not listening in on the conversation, probably from the moment that Sundance mentioned ‘new Guardian’, and even as Cayde finds himself in somewhat of a daze of Meera’s latest shenanigans, he is still just lucid enough to hear what they’re saying. He probably won’t be of much use until his processors decide to work properly again, but he’ll be aware at least, and that’s certainly something.

“Quite the spitfire, your lost, little scout, Cayde,” Ikora notes as she leans against his side of the table. “Sent to a classified location, wasn’t that what you said?”

The noise that Cayde lets out is more akin to metal being viciously abused than anything even _remotely_ human-esque.

“The Fireteam is en route back to the Tower as of five minutes ago,” Sundance continues her little spiel as she shifts her eye between Cayde’s slackened face and the coffee cup held limply in his hand. “I’ll let the hangar know to expect them.”

“Right,” Cayde manages to get out through his voice box, “Yo—you do that, ‘Dance…”

Holy Hell, what the fuck just happened?

* * *

If it wasn’t the horde of excited, chattering Guardians filling the courtyard that gets the Vanguard’s attention, it’s most certainly the piercing whistle coming from the Tower’s entrance to the hangar.

Out strides three Guardians, covered in everything from dirt to oil to blood from either themselves or Fallen, it really isn’t clear. What _is_ clear, however, is the fact that all three of them are practically vibrating with energy as they bring forth their trophy from a normal mission-turned-impromptu strike.

Watching as Meera wrestles her head out of her helmet, Cayde can only do a double take as her team comes closer, and there’s a brief moment where the fact that they actually did this really sinks in.

If nothing else, his favorite Guardian’s opening line certainly does.

"Hey, Vanguard! Look what we caught!”

Cayde isn’t sure if Clovis Bray ever intended for their mass-produced murderbots of various talents to feel vertigo, but he sure as Hell is when Meera strides forward with her Fireteam, dragging the mangled heart of a servitor behind her by its still-sizzling cables and wearing the Devil’s crest like a badge of pride around her shoulders. On anyone else the dark red cloak would have looked hideous, in Cayde’s own humble opinion, but on her it looks amazing.

None of these thoughts are biased whatsoever.

“Pretty sure that ain’t the Archon we tasked you with, Guardians,” Cayde nods at the mechanical mess getting dragged behind the Guardians. “There a reason why you decided to clean house out there?”

“Stumbled upon it,” the Titan—Zalli, if Cayde’s memory doesn’t deceive him—answers as they come to a halt and pulls off his scorched helmet. “Also, respectfully, you might have said that your newest Hunter is a damn demon with a gun, Vanguard, before you let her loose out there with the rest of us. Damn near scared the Light out of her Ghost with how she jumped those bastards out there. Almost enough for me to feel sorry for the sorry, little shits.”

“Gotta find ways to keep you on your toes, Titan,” the Exo smirks as he jumps over the railing. “And for all your quipping, you certainly don’t seem like you’ve suffered anything that a good shot of something strong and a night’s rest won’t fix.”

The third Fireteam member, their Warlock, raises both eyebrows at Cayde’s comment. “You Hunters are fuckin’ crazy, Mr. Vanguard, Sir. No offence meant, but you are.”

“And damn proud of it, too,” Meera laughs when they come to a stop in front of the gathered spectators. “So, what’ll it be?”

“Expectations of a pretty pile of glimmer, if your tone is anything to go by,” Cayde notes dryly and is met with a wave of snickers and hoots all along. “Get that thing dragged to the Cryptarchs and come find me at the bar afterwards. First round’s on me, kids!”

The answering roar of joy from the Guardians assembled is enough to deafen his audio units momentarily, but to Cayde it is more than worth it when he gets to see Meera’s face once more—carefree and safe, home from a mission and still breathing.

* * *

He gets the dream again.

Well, _technically, _it’s a vision or something else out of this world, but to Cayde it still feels kind of like the dreams that he sometimes gets whenever he powers down enough to actually _dream_.

The tower in fog, the teeth—both sharp and blunt, all of them are still there—everything that was shown to him when he hung in the darkness after his little hissy fit against the Traveler.

* * *

Time goes on.

Cayde watches as Meera flourishes and conquers threat after threat, and Cayde holds her when she is just about ready to break from having to enter the Hellmouth and finish off Crota once more.

He’s been up there on the Moon, seen the destruction that the Hive has brought to Luna through his own excursions to the place, as well as through the various feeds he has access to through his scouts scattered across the system. He remembers the thick tension from when the raid on Luna was last performed, how he could practically taste it back here on Earth from the moment that they landed on the barren moon.

Cayde does not envy her duty.

“You’ll be alright,” he murmurs to her the night before she is to depart and kisses away the tears that run down her cheeks. “You’ve dealt with worse, you’ve _survived_ worse.”

And she has, both of them know it, but it sure doesn’t stop him from lingering just slightly longer than necessary the next day when he sees her and her team off.

“Bring me back a souvenir!” he yells after them as the doors to the ship are closing. “Preferably something dead!”

He receives a middle finger in response and Cayde spends the entire trip back to the Hall of Guardians cackling like a madman possessed, even as he wants nothing more than to yell and scream at the Traveler for doing this to them, for doing this to _her_.

* * *

His Guardian and her Fireteam comes back as heroes after a week of insufferable radio silence, carrying trophies that reek of foul Hive arcana and all of them sporting the same vary, hunted look in their eyes, even in the safety of the Last City.

Cayde watches the Tower erupt into cheers and celebrations with rapt eyes and amidst the festivities his eyes meet with Meera’s.

Both nod to each other, their miens equally grim.

Both know what is coming, what the death of Crota means.

Oryx.

* * *

The private celebration of the raid going successful is much more subdued than Cayde would have counted on.

Meera is dead on her feet by the time that the two of them make it to Cayde’s apartment, and he has to practically drag her into the shower when they finally get inside and she nearly stumbles over thin air. He wraps one arm under her shoulders to keep her upright, snags a small stool with the other and takes both with him on his journey to the apartment’s bathroom.

Muttering beneath his breath, Cayde manages to somehow get her seated on the toilet and keeps up a steady stream of mostly one-sided conversation about everything that he can think of. Her gear is slowly stripped away as Cayde deftly handles the various buttons, zippers and buckles that make out the various pieces of armor, and it does not take long before the bathroom floor is littered with everything from extra throwing knives covered in Hive-guts to the threadbare scarf that Meera insists on still using. She slurs incoherently when Cayde eases the last thing off her body, and he is quick to assuage her with soft murmurs and gentle presses of his lips against her skin.

“Come on now, hero, up we get,” he grunts and has her stand up on wobbly legs in order to get her undersuit and underwear off her body, leaving Meera as naked as the day she was born. “Time for a wash.”

“I dun’wanna,” Meera slurs and leans precariously backwards for a moment before Cayde gets a firm grip on her once more.

“Well, tough luck, ‘cause I sure ain’t lettin’ you lie in my bed while you’re covered in Hive from top to toe, missy.”

He gets her into the shower along with the stool, and thus begins the longest bath that Cayde has any recollection of ever participating in.

With sponge, soap and shower head in hand, Cayde begins to methodically wash down every single part of Meera that he can get his hands on, periodically cursing when his fingers begin to twist up in her hair with help from the water and soap. There is something relaxing in the monotony of rubbing the sponge across her skin and seeing it return to a healthy, organic _pink_ instead of the dusty, powdery brown and gray color that it started out as before he began his endeavor to see her clean once more.

Meera mumbles incoherently when he gets to her chest and lets out a garbled giggle when his fingers unintentionally tickle her, resulting in Cayde getting suds of soap and water _everywhere _when her sudden jerk has her body crash into his.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he grumbles without any real heat behind the words before attacking the filth still covering Meera’s body. “There’s water _everywhere_, you little shit.”

Whatever Meera’s answer is, she is too tired to make it coherent and all that Cayde picks up is her muttering about what he assumes to be ‘water’ and ‘slippery’, but he can’t be sure.

Eventually the last soap is scrubbed from her body and the suds of shampoo is rinsed from her hair, and Cayde wastes no time in wrapping up Meera in the biggest towel that he can muster before he steers her in the direction of their bedroom.

Meera practically collapses from the moment that he guides her down onto the mattress and pulls the covers up to her chin, soft snores making their way to his audio units within seconds and leaving Cayde to gaze down at the now-slumbering woman in his bed.

There is a strip of moonlight making its way into the bedroom, painting a silvery line across the bed itself, and Cayde takes a moment to simply look down at the woman before him and take it all in. With his quite frankly far superior eyesight, Cayde sees every rise and fall of Meera’s chest underneath the covers, and then, finally, it hits him.

_Meera is home_.

She is home, safe as safe can be, physically no worse for wear than when she left, but Cayde isn’t stupid enough to think that this will be it. The first time this happened there were scars left on Meera’s mind, whether they were acknowledged or not. From now on, he will have to play the waiting game until they decide to rear their ugly head, and when they do, he’ll be ready with sword and shield, if need be.

Cayde slips beneath the covers as well after divesting himself of his own gear, armor thrown carelessly onto the floor and cloak carefully folded and draped over the back of a chair, and immediately sets out to slip his arms around Meera’s sleeping body.

It feels as if the two of them were made for each other once he finally wiggles into place and gently tugs Meera backwards until she is lying with her back against his chest, hair still wet from her bath and the towel being the only thing separating the two of them. He is too exhausted himself from everything that has happened today and doesn’t even bother trying to wrangle her out of it before Cayde closes his own eyes, breathes in the scent of Meera’s wet hair and prepares for sleep.

All is right in the world.

* * *

It is in the middle of the night where the frail peace that Cayde and Meera have enjoyed so far shatters.

The muffled shriek from his bedpartner has Cayde awake in seconds, even as his body is slow to struggle out of sleep’s hold, and as he twists around between the sheets, he is met by Meera staring blankly up at the ceiling as she clenches her hands in the cover. He doesn’t need better eyesight to see how the sweat is running down her forehead in rivers or how her entire body is coiled and ready to spring at the nearest adversary that she can locate.

Slowly, telegraphing every single move that he is going to make, Cayde gets up from the bed and circles around until he can crouch down by Meera’s side. She flinches when his hand reaches out to wrap around her own, and struggles momentarily when he tugs her into a sitting position, but up she goes and Cayde grunts when she abruptly melts into his firm embrace. The hands that have just then been busy clenching at the covers instead come up to dig short nails into the silicone mesh that connects his body plates. He keeps his hold firm enough to keep her upright, but not tight enough to constrict her, and mutters softly into her ear when the shivers begin to spread from all over her body.

Meera hiccups and attempts to burrow closer, desperate to press herself closer to him, but when her hands begin to ghost their way down towards the drawstring of his pants, Cayde immediately puts a stop to her ministrations. This is not what she needs right now, even if her mind has somehow convinced her otherwise, and Cayde ignores the keen in her voice when she is thwarted once more.

“You’re alright, Mee,” he reassures and attempts to soothe with gentle hands down her back and a grounding hand wrapped in her tangled hair. Her hands fall limply to her sides when he keeps her from turning this thing into sex instead of comfort. This is _not_ the time. “Shh, you’re alright…”

She shakes her head against his chest as the sobs begin anew.

“I—I don’t—”

“You came back to me,” he shushes her and the hand in her hair tightens ever so slightly. Cayde presses his lips to her forehead and smooths away the tangles strands of hair sticking to it. “You came back, Meera.”

“I feel sick,” she manages to get out, even if her voice sounds like sandpaper. “It won—it won’t _go away_!”

“It will,” Cayde holds her tighter. He knows _exactly_ what she is talking about. “It _will_, I promise.”

The muted flash of Light behind him signals the entrance of their Ghosts.

“Cayde, is she—?”

“She’ll be alright, Ghost,” Cayde murmurs, still stroking down Meera’s hair and further down her back before retreating up top to repeat. “I’ll care of this.”

The Ghost hovers awkwardly in the air and flies around to get a good look at Meera. Right now she’s a right sight with tears running down her cheeks, her face flushed from the crying and sweat making her skin shiny and stick to practically everything. It is by no means a pretty sight, but Cayde really could not care less as he continues to try and calm down the hysteric Guardian in his arms.

“See that you do,” is all her Ghost spits out before he disappears once more in a bright flash of Light, leaving Cayde all alone once more with only Meera for company.

Her breathing is still further on the panicky side than Cayde would like it to be, but the hiccups and sobbing are slowly subsiding, so that’s certainly something. Not optimal by any means, but… something, he supposes.

“Alright, c’mon,” he mutters and begins the task of getting settled once more into the bed, Guardian draped over his chest and clutching him like a touch-starved starfish. “It’s way too early for either of us to be up yet, try to get some sleep.”

“What if I can’t?” comes her small, shaky question.

“Well, in that case I’m going to keep running my mouth until you get tired of me, as well as cashing in on both of our days off when it becomes a more respectable hour. Traveler knows you deserve it.”

This manages to at least get a small laugh out of her, and Cayde smiles in the dark.

“I want to go home, Cayde,” she whispers as the tears slowly begin to subside. “This place, this isn’t our home.”

“Here we’re alive, sweetheart, ain’t that a bit better?”

“Of course, it’s better,” Meera sniffles. It sounds a lot louder than it probably is. “But back there, the people around us actually _knows us_. I don’t feel that way here.”

In the darkness of their shared bedroom, Cayde huffs as he reclines further against the headboard of his bed.

He doesn’t know what to say to _that._

* * *

Cayde will never admit it, but he had a tendency to overthink situations that he is involved in.

It’s what he likes to call a work injury he’s gotten after spending one too many nights up late and pondering over both maps and reports and needing to check in with his various people out there in the field about what is happening in the Sol System.

And following both the defeat of Crota that he witnesses for the umpteenth time, not that anyone but him knows that, as well as the breach and subsequent defeat of whatever was inside of the Black Garden, Cayde begins to _think_.

About what is coming. About Oryx. About the Taken.

About the fact that he will have to send Meera into that damnable Dreadnaught once more.

About what he can do to stop it.

* * *

Days, _weeks_, go by without anything.

Nothing—zilch, nada, niente—tips off the feelers he has out beyond the Jovian system, not his scouts in the field nor the contacts within Ikora’s Hidden has anything of interest to tell him, and he sure as shit knows that the Reefborn Awoken would rather eat the sharp end of a Fallen’s shiv than tell Earth if anything had dared encroach upon their territory.

Not even Petra can help him here.

This makes Cayde frustrated. _Very_ frustrated, indeed.

Irritated, short tempered and generally a downright party pooper to be around. If Ikora and Zavala haven’t guessed that something’s not alright with him, then he’s certainly given them far more credit than they’d ever deserve, but sure enough, it is not even the end of the week before Zavala asks him to remain behind after their weekly meetings regarding the City.

“Cayde.”

“Zavala.”

Zavala sighs and leans forward, his hands resting on the Vanguard’s table as a familiar expression makes itself known on the Commander’s face. It’s an expression that Cayde has long-since categorized as Zavala’s ‘You are severely testing my patience and I would much rather hurl you out the window right now but Ikora will have my hide’-face.

“You are restless. Enough that neither Ikora or I can ignore it.”

“Perceptive of you to notice,” Cayde snaps at him, bouncing one leg beneath the table.

“_Cayde_,” Zavala stands up, using every bit of height difference between the two of them to his advantage and effectively towers above the Exo. “Your glibness is not appreciated regarding this matter. Something is obviously wrong here, and for the life of me I cannot figure out what it is.”

“It ain’t nothing you need to concern yourself with, Blue,” if Cayde sounds like he’s ready to bite off Zavala’s head it’s because he _is_ and fuck it if he’s going to mince words here. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Obviously,” is Zavala’s dry reply, and Cayde’s hackles are up in an instant.

“I didn’t ask for your damn help! I don’t need it and I don’t _want it_!” he’s shouting by the end there, seeing red. “So far I’ve kept far away from your personal business, so do me a solid and show the same damn respect.”

“There is a difference between turning a blind eye to what your colleagues are dealing with and what your friends are, Cayde,” Zavala frowns and steps around the table with his hand held out. “I had hoped that by this point, after many years of working together, that you’d see both Ikora and I as the latter.”

“Still don’t mean that this is something I need you interferin’ with!” Cayde hisses and backs away from the advancing Titan. His hand is _itching_ to grip the handle of his gun, but that is only going to lead to far more trouble than it’s worth.

So. He takes the easy way out and abruptly turns on his heel to walk away.

“Cayde! This discussion is far from over!”

“Bite me!” he roars and is out of the Hall as fast as he can walk.

Behind him he hears Zavala’s yells grow closer before long, and Cayde immediately speeds up, heading past bewildered Guardians, technicians and frames who are all quick to move out of the way of the furious Vanguard heading in their direction. Then, just as he hears Zavala’s heavy stomps going up the stairs leading to the Courtyard, Cayde looks back to shoot Zavala a scathing glare before he jumps over the railing leading down to the City.

See if the asshole can catch him now.

* * *

Cayde’s response to this entire situation is anything but mature, he’s well aware of that, but that certainly doesn’t stop him from keeping up the spectacular decisions to keep away from uncomfortable decisions and situations as he strolls through the crowds in one of the Last City’s districts.

Sundance keeps pinging every now and then, letting him know mentally whenever a new message trickles in and dutifully informs him who’s sent it each and every time. He keeps ignoring it all, determined to walk until the chaos inside of his head begins to calm enough for him to think clearly, but even so, he feels as if there are weights being placed upon his shoulders with every ping and every message that goes unread.

The two of them finally come to a stop once they’re well outside the City’s walls, looking out over the wide plains that stretch out all around the Last City from atop a small hill. There’s a brisk wind blowing and

“You have over forty unread messages from various people, Cayde,” Sundance informs and nestles into the folds of his scarf. “I think you should go through them.”

“Don’t wanna,” he mutters and spits a blob of oil out into the grass. “How many of’em are from Zavala?”

“Ten.”

“And the rest?”

“Various reports from your scouts all over the system, as well as from Guardian Quill.”

“How many from Meera?”

“Five. They’re all about when your shift is over, and if you’re interested in going out for dinner.”

“Hmm,” he grunts and lays back in the grass. Above him, the wide, scarred shell of the Traveler reflects the setting sun. “Let her know I’ll be back home soon.”

“Will do,” Sundance acknowledges.

Peace and quiet reigns supreme out here, and Cayde closes his eyes as he soaks in the smell and feeling of the wilds. He’s shed his boots just after arriving, and while he no longer has organic skin, the grass and small pebbles out here still manage to feel amazing. If it weren’t for the faint noises of cranes and other construction equipment faintly audible in the background, it would all be utterly tranquil out here, but Cayde ain’t picky—he’ll take what he can get.

And that, as Cayde just lies there in the grass with the setting sun above him and a gentle breeze cooling his plates, is of course when a series of sharp pings suddenly goes off from his handheld.

“What the Hell?” Cayde cracks open a single eye as he grumbles and begins fishing out the device.

“One of your scouts has just sent a priority Alpha message, Cayde,” Sundance sounds half perplexed-half amused, only to narrow her eye when Cayde’s motions goes from annoyed to outright desperate. “Cayde?”

“Where did it—_fuck_!” he snarls and sits up, feverishly patting himself down until he manages to finally fish the handheld out from one of his pockets. “The message, Sundance, where did it come from?!”

“It—uh,” his Ghost is stumped. Well, fuck that, they don’t have time to be stumped!

“_Sundance_!” Cayde snarls and the Ghost visibly jerks in the air as he scrambles to flip through the messages to find the high-priority.

He immediately reels back when a truly disgusting amount of static interference cuts straight into his audio receptors, and Sundance lets out her own yowl of discomfort.

“_T-they’re coming! Cayde, boss, you were right about somethin’ out there on its’ way!”_ the voice of one of his Hunters screams as the noise of the static keeps flickering in and out of the harried recording. _“They’re coming_!”

Cayde is up and running for the City gates before the message is over.

“Send a message to Zavala and Ikora immediately,” he wheezes, jumping on one foot to fasten his boot to his leg. “Emergency of fuckin’ _epic_ proportions incoming!”

“On it,” his darling Ghost promptly declares before deigning to take pity on him and equips both of his boots with a burst of Light strong enough to almost make Cayde fall down on his ass.

“Sundance, prepare for transmat!” he proceeds to yell over his shoulder and sets off against the ground, jumping over a boulder in his way.

“To _where_?!”

“_The Tower_, for fuck’s sake, where else?”

“Coming right up!”

The tingling sensation of atoms being pulled apart and then rearranged is something that Cayde will never stop having a strong dislike for, but momentary discomfort is a small price to pay as he sees the world outside of the City disappear in blurry pixels and instead be replaced by the slightly-less populated Courtyard in the Tower. More than a few sets of eyes fasten on him, the Speaker too, if Cayde’s eyes don’t deceive him, but the Exo doesn’t stop for a moment as he barrels past the spectators whilst praying to every deity that might be listening that Ikora and Zavala have both received and read his message.

He is still wheezing from the rush of adrenaline coursing through his systems when he slams open the doors to the Hall of Guardians, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

Both Ikora and Zavala’s eyes bore into him as he staggers his way to the table, although whether their expressions are concerned or pitying, he has _no fucking idea_, but Cayde is beyond caring at this point.

“Clear the room of everyone below security level sixteen,” Cayde manages to get out between the gulping heaves for unnecessary breath that he takes in. When no one moves he whirls around to glare at every single non-Guardian with a _vengeance_. “I said, _clear the room_!”

Mutters and more than a few vary looks finds their way to Cayde, but he remains steadfast and glares viciously until every single unauthorized person has left the damn room, leaving only Ikora, Zavala and himself.

“Cayde, what in the—”

He cuts off Ikora with a wave of the hand as he turns and looks both of his comrades straight in the eyes.

“We’re in deep shit.”

* * *

He tells them everything.

Well, everything that he can safely reveal about Oryx so far, at least.

He tells them about feeling uneasy since the Garden and Crota kicking the dust, tells them about sending out people just in case that his hunch would turn out right—and he knows that even if they were ever to know the real truth behind all of this, they won’t be able to set aside his actions as mere paranoia, because look at what happened with Andal after the supposed defeat of Taniks.

The sun sets and before they know it, it is past midnight, but none of the Vanguard have any plans of leaving the Hall in the near future.

“We will need to inform the Speaker of this entire situation,” Zavala looks as if he isn’t quite sure whether or not to strangle Cayde or wrap him in a true Titan-styled bearhug.

Cayde’s not really sure which one he’d rather have, to be honest.

“As will the Awoken Queen,” Ikora says and frowns as she jots down notes on her own handheld while shooting both Cayde and Zavala equally worried looks. “If Cayde’s scout is correct in—”

“—which he _is_.”

“—his report, then the first people that this hostile fleet would come across would be the Reef.”

“We owe it to ‘em,” Cayde nods. “I can have a messenger ready within the hour, or, better yet, make contact with my ins at Sov’s court.”

“You are speaking of your ties to the Queen’s Wrath?”

Cayde doesn’t say another word as he tersely paces back and forth, just gives Ikora another quick nod before he resumes wandering back and forth on his end of the table. Sundance rubs delicately against the side of his throat, and Cayde automatically raises a hand to caress her fins. When she quietly informs him of an incoming call from Meera, he sighs and steps away from the table.

“I’ll be right back,” he mumbles before slipping out of the room and breathes in deep before heading out towards the Courtyard.

It isn’t just the room reserved for Vanguard operations that have been cleared out. The entirety of the Hall of Guardians has been cleared, Shaxx and Eris’ stations included. It echoes when his boots connect with the flooring, and Cayde shudders as he takes in the silent corridor.

He hates it.

However, as he reaches up to connect the incoming call with his comm device, Cayde stills. Out from the shadows of the entrance to the Hall he sees Meera step forth. Her eyes have bags beneath them and she looks harried.

She’s probably already guessed what’s going on.

“Cayde?”

He doesn’t say a word as he walks up to her and drags her into the tightest embrace that he can muster.

“Cayde, what is all this?”

“I thought that we had more time,” he groans and buries his face in her hair. “I didn’t think it’d be so soon.”

“_What_ is happening so soon?”

“Oryx.”

It is only one word but it feels like so much more with every moment that passes. He can feel how Meera tenses in his arms, and a phantom ringing in his ear keeps muting everything around him when she pulls loose from his grip to look up at him. That single fucking word feels like poison in his mouth, and yet this will not be the first time in the coming days, weeks, months, that he will have to hear it, utter it.

And he _hates it_.

* * *

They send out messages to the Awoken but even so the result is very much the same. The Queen is still lost, the Awoken Fleet still decimated.

Cayde prays that Petra will never come to know of his foreknowledge.

* * *

Not even twenty-four hours after Oryx has met the Queen in combat, the Vanguard votes to send Meera to Phobos.

Cayde spends the rest of that night taking out his frustrations on the Tower’s shooting range.

* * *

“Hey, Guardian!” Cayde calls out as Meera is about to board her borrowed ship.

“Yeah?”

Cayde’s grin is wide and bright enough to power a small settlement. “For good luck, yeah?”

He flicks something at her, and Meera catches it without trouble. Looking down at her hand she sees a playing card, a Queen of Hearts.

“For good luck, hm?” Meera raises an eyebrow at Cayde, who only grins right back at her.

“Damn straight,” he nods. “Come back alive, y’hear?”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” she salutes him and winks as the doors shut between them.

“Bring me back a souvenir,” he whispers as the ship disappears out of the hangar and shoots off for the stars.

Now he just has to have faith.

He can do that.

He can have faith.

Won’t be no problem there.


	4. Meera II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: potential(?) dub-con towards the end of this chapter. not really sure exactly _what_ this qualifies as, but reckoned that a warning wouldn't be amiss__

From the moment that she touches down on Phobos, there is this sensation of _wrongness_ that keeps permeating the atmosphere.

She knows what will and is about to happen, has seen it pass before, but even so the ordeal is still as harrowing a second time as it was the first. When she wreathes herself in Void and sneaks through the corridors of the Cabal base, sees the proud creatures reduced to fleeing in terror from the Taken, Meera keeps silent even as her Ghost fills her head with a million questions. She palms the small breast pocket in her suit, presses the tips of her fingers against the slightly harder texture where Cayde’s Queen of Hearts-card is placed, and breathes out with a grimace. The air has a taste to it that even the quite-effective filter in her mask cannot completely erase, and her tongue feels thick and dry when she smacks her lips in order to try and rid her mouth of the taste.

And with every step she takes to that large circular room where she knows everything will change, the taste gets worse.

When Oryx appears, she nearly doubles over from the pungent stench that fills her helmet, but Meera stubbornly stands tall and begins unloading everything that she has into his vision as into the manifestation viciously attacking her as well. One hand is kept clenched as she wills whatever Light that she can spare into it, and the cold, roiling sensation of the Void soon greets her.

Her comm putters out, sending into static noise into her ear.

Meera grits her teeth when the Taken creature eventually rushes her and succeeds in slamming her back into the wall as thrall, psions and Traveler knows what else begins to swarm around her. She can feel how her muscles give in and how her body no doubt will be bruised to Hell and back come morning, but she will worry about that later.

And that is when she finally recognizes that something is wrong.

The Taken, they are not attacking her.

“**Your Light**…” Oryx’s voice makes the entire room _vibrate _and it feels like shards of glass being pushed inside open wounds. Meera curls up with a scream as _something_ touches her face. “**It will be Taken**.”

But then the touch retracts as a snarl is heard above her and Meera dares look up. The sight that meets her makes her tense in fear _immediately_ as she stares directly up into the eyes of Oryx’s twisted visage. His talons are stretched out towards her, almost looking as if they are pressed against something but not quite touching. His mouth is split in a feral snarl and shows far more teeth than Meera even _knew_ could be possible, alien or no alien.

And there, almost invisible if it weren’t for the constantly changing lighting within this hellscape that she finds herself trapped in, Meera blinks as she, if only for a moment, spots the faintest of dancing lights curl above her, as if in a half dome. Whatever it is, it is most certainly not Light, for even Meera’s blunted senses right now would have picked that up.

And yet…

And yet it feels… _familiar_.

Eerie.

Mysterious.

Almost like—

“**It dares stay my hand?!**” the shadow whisper-roars and Meera shrieks when the vibrations make her feels as if someone is busy beating in her eardrums. Oryx’s hand curls over whatever is shielding her from him, the tips of the talons dragging against it and creating a shrill whine in the air. “**Of course, _it_ would dare interfere**.”

Her Ghost is screaming inside her head. Her entire body hurts from both Oryx and his damn manifestation’s attack. Her free hand is still coiled in vicious Void Light.

_Now_!

Meera finally lets go and uses what little strength that she has left to roll out of the way when a torrent of purple Void is unleashed from where she had placed her clenched hand before on the ground, and smiles sadistically when it erupts directly into the manifestation’s face. It reels back, screeching in pain, and the smaller Taken around it rear back as well in reaction to the attack.

That is all the distraction that Meera needs.

She dodges to the right, barreling through the small barricade of enemies there, and runs as fast as she can across the room. Behind her she can hear Oryx’s furious roar as his prey escapes, and she doesn’t look back even once as she speeds through the corridors of the Cabal base.

It is only when she bursts out from the base’s insides and gets a good look at what is happening around the base that her comm comes back online, and Meera lets out a breath of relief when the static in her ear finally transforms into the voice of Commander Zavala.

“_Guardian, get off Phobos this instant_! _The situation is out of control, pull back _now!”

“On it, Commander!”

* * *

She was a fool to think that the Taken King would make it _easy_.

* * *

The sound of a Cabal carrier exploding overhead is _deafening_.

Meera swallows as she tries to make herself as small as possible behind a rickety barricade. The whine of bullets fills the air, as does the screams of pain and rage from the Cabal huddled behind both Phalanx barriers and metal protrusions to escape the wrath of the Taken army. Her Ghost is huddled within his own small pocket of space and time, safely tucked away and still quite shaken from the encounter with Oryx earlier.

When she hears the telltale rustle of a gun close by, she turns and looks directly at a group of Cabal looking quite torn between either shooting her or shoot at the enemies flooding their base. Meera sighs before she raises a hand to them in greeting.

“We can kill each other later!” she screams at the group of Cabal aiming their weapons at her. “For now, kill those things!”

Her words must make it through whatever battle-crazed haze that the Cabal are neck-deep in because they nod amongst themselves before settling down to cover her.

She’s not dying today. By the Traveler, not when she’s finally come so far!

* * *

“**_I FEEL YOUR LIGHT, CREATURE!_**”

When Oryx’s voice reverberates inside her head Meera’s heart skips a beat and she barely manage to save herself from faceplanting directly into the dense metal floors of the base. She instead scrambles to keep her balance and huddles behind a shot-to-Hell-and-back barricade that looks like it is barely even standing at this point.

With bullets flying everywhere and Taken energies hurtling around everything that is not bolted down, Meera ducks out from behind her cover, her weapon clutched tightly in hand, and sprints across the narrow walkway. She can _see_ her ship out there in the distance, can feel how her Ghost keeps trying to transmat despite the thick blockage of Darkness that permeates Phobos’ airspace.

Behind her, she hears the screams of the Cabal being slaughtered as the barricades are overrun. Below her, she hears the horrifying noises from the Taken that are swarming every inch of Phobos. And inside of her head she hears the whispered promises of Oryx as his presence draws closer around her.

Her ship is right within sight when it happens.

It is _so fucking close_. She can almost taste the freedom that is promised if only she can make it there.

Something slams into her from the side and sends her flying through the air. When she collides with a wall and something _cracks_ inside of her she barely manages to muffle the scream of agony before that horrible sensation of Oryx once more manifests behind her.

“**You will not escape**,” his voice echoes both within her mind and out of it. She tries to drag herself away, but Oryx is quick to stop her desperate attempt at escaping with but a sweep of his hand before the walkways are all flooded with more of his wretched creations. “**I am _far_ from finished with you!**”

* * *

It does not take long for Oryx to figure out a way to gain his revenge, for while he himself cannot pierce the film that protects her from his touch, Meera has no such boon to shield her from his minions.

* * *

When he takes her Ghost and smothers him in Darkness until his Light is utterly extinguished, Meera screams herself hoarse as she desperately tries to get closer.

Oryx laughs, and it is _horrible_.

* * *

When he conjures creatures to break every bone in her body, she wails until her voice is nothing but a whisper, and yet Oryx does not stop.

* * *

It is while he is busy commandeering the talons of a Taken thrall to open her insides and paint them across the ground that Meera realizes her comm has been on. That she realizes exactly _what_ that screeching noise in her ears has been.

_Cayde has been screaming her name_.

* * *

The last thing that she sees before the Darkness takes her is the vicious grin on Oryx’s face as he finally takes revenge for the son that she took from him.

* * *

_Cayde_, she exhales as the strangest sensation of _peace_ comes over her. _Oh, Cayde… I’m so sorry…_

* * *

Darkness.

* * *

Nothing but Darkness.

She can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t hear, can’t feel, can’t _live_!

* * *

The Darkness is everywhere, it seeps into her pores, into her mouth and her nostrils and her eyes and her ears—it devours the flesh that it touches and leaves stinging pain behind that grows with every moment of respite that she gains.

* * *

She wishes for the pain to stop and it keeps going. She wishes for the Light to show her the way and the Darkness presses down heavier against her torn and shredded skin. She wishes to awaken anywhere but in the Prison because she cannot do that again after finally finding him again, alive and _breathing_ and not on the verge of death.

* * *

If any of her pleas are answered, she does not know.

* * *

When the teeth come back, sleek and terrible and beautiful, Meera barely even flinches when she feels them dig into her flesh.

“Take what you want,” she cries. “Just please—don’t let me go back to that place!”

* * *

She wants to believe that the teeth indulge her.

* * *

She is not sure if she even knows what she is doing any—

* * *

—and with a great heave for breath, Meera stares up at a bright blue sky as the scent of snow and dirt and rust and Fallen crashes down around her.

Her hand reaches out, feeble and cold, to tangle her fingers in the wilting strands of browning grass as she watches small, fluffy clouds dance across the sky above her. Out of the corner of her eye she can see the branches of a tree bob in the harsh winds that blow across wherever she is, and her hands clench into fists.

A noise is ringing in her ears, makes her deaf to everything around her, and so she only sees the small machine in front of her when she finally sits up from her sprawled position on the ground.

“Guardian, you’re awake!” the little machine chirps victoriously, seemingly oblivious to the dull, empty eyes that gaze upon it. “I was worried there for a moment that something had gone wrong, and—”

She cuts it off with a raised, shivering, hand.

“Where…” Stars above, her voice sounds like it has been through a grinder. “Where am… I?”

Her Ghost bops in the air as it twirls its back fins. “You’re in one of the Cosmodromes that dot Old Russia. This is Fallen territory, we’re not safe here—I can get you to the City, just follow me.”

Something is wrong.

This she realizes as she looks at the small, trusting creation in front of her that is _bursting_ with Light—bright and pure and untarnished.

She should know better.

Oh, but she _should_—Cayde taught her better than this.

Meera forces a smile on her face, desperately wishes for the coldness of her limbs to abate, and slowly gets on her feet.

“Lead the way, little guy.”

* * *

Her mood grows more morose the longer that their slow trek through the rusting pathways takes.

If her Ghost is confused in any shape or form in terms of _why_ his Guardian already knows how to fire a gun or can easily navigate the twisted corridors of the Cosmodrome, he does not show it.

If he is confused over how she knows exactly where to go and is already climbing into the near-derelict jumpship by the time that he catches up to her, he is tactful enough not to make it _too_ obvious.

Meera’s quiet request for him to get them out of here as fast as possible does draw a worried expression from him, though.

_Let him think what he wants to_, she grumbles to herself as she leans back in the threadbare seat and looks out at the clouds speeding past them. _I owe no answers_.

She wants to believe it.

She really does.

* * *

Meera looks down as the jumpship takes off, sees the cliff where she was cold and dead not even two hours ago, and closes her eyes.

For now, she is safe. For now, Oryx holds no power over her, or her Light for that matter.

For now, at least.

* * *

She nearly weeps from joy when she sees the Tower’s dark form rise against the Traveler’s bright white, and most certainly sheds tears when she is brought down to solid ground beneath her feet once more.

Her Ghost says nothing.

* * *

“I’ve received information as to where you have been assigned.”

“Assigned?” Meera looks more than a little confused.

“For your housing unit, of course,” Ghost chirps and gently nuzzles a fin against her cheek. “We’re not going to be left out on the street!”

“Oh,” is her very-much-so intelligent answer.

And then, they’re off.

However, that strange sensation of ‘wrongness’ never disappears.

During the entire walk through familiar streets Meera feels as if a haze has settled over her, because _she remembers_.

She remembers being back here with Cayde, walking through the streets, happy and carefree, simply ecstatic over being back together with him.

And then…

Then Phobos, the Taken and Oryx. She remembers the Darkness tearing into her, making her scream in agony and then remembering that her comm is still very much online. It had been too later by that point for her Ghost to cut the connection back to Earth and the Tower, even if she would never want Cayde to hear this, to remember this.

From the moment that Oryx’s Echo had taken her Ghost and crushed it in front of her, Meera faintly recalls hearing something that she wants to believe was Cayde’s frantic voice in her comm, screaming at her to get up and get out but she _can’t_ because Oryx held her down, touched her, overwhelmed her.

Her eyes sting from the tears that she stubbornly tries to hold back, and she wordlessly presses her trembling lips to her Ghost when he flies into her grasp. No doubt he can feel her emotions and how topsy-turvy everything feels to her right now, even if he does not completely understand it. But, nonetheless, he directs her down familiar streets until she ends up staring at an all too familiar door.

Automatically she reaches out towards the lockpad, only to abruptly halt just before touching it. Her fingers hover above the mechanism for several seconds as she just stares at the door, takes in all of the nicks and scrapes that dot it, presses her fingertips against the old bullet hole from the Ace that Cayde told her he’d accidentally made when Shiro had come by to congratulate him on his position as Vanguard.

She remembers so many things about this apartment, but for the life of her she can’t figure out where Cayde is, or even why she has been assigned to _this_ apartment.

He wasn’t there when she stumbled into the Hall of Guardians, bedraggled and dirty, looking like a lost child seeking their parent.

Is this how Cayde has felt every single time that he’s been brought back? She shudders just _thinking_ about it.

“Guardian?”

Meera bites her lip as she glances at the curious Ghost hovering beside her before pressing her hand against the lockpad. Her eyes widen in surprise when the door opens up immediately, showing a dark interior.

The entire housing unit is completely dark when she enters it with nothing but the soft light from the hallway outside illuminating the entry. Her Ghost wastes no time in syncing up to the alarm and is busy exploring their new home, but even as he makes the lights turn on and bathe the entire apartment in muted light Meera can’t truly shake the feeling that something is _wrong_.

“This is much nicer than most other housing units I’ve seen before,” Ghost comments as he swoops into the kitchenette attached through the hallway. “And a lot more upkept than the usual rooms assigned to new Guardians.”

Meera nods absentmindedly as she proceeds on to the living room. “You’re certainly ri—_Speaker’s balls_!”

She involuntarily takes a step back when she sees him.

Huddled against the sole couch in the room sits Cayde, hood down and draped across the back of the furniture and a bottle of something viciously colored in his hand. His eyes are barely visible except for the faint strips of blue light that illuminate the area around his sockets, and Meera cannot keep the pained noise down enough for his sensors to _not_ pick up on it.

His eyes widen ever so slightly as his head tips up and sees her.

At least, she _hopes_ that he sees her.

“Cayde?”

Her voice still sounds gravely and rough from disuse. Since coming to the City, she has barely said more than twenty words, probably less, if she is being accurate.

“No, the—that ain’t right,” Cayde mumbles and an arm comes up to brace itself against the couch behind him. “You ain’t back yet, are ya?”

“Cayde, it—it’s _me_,” she says and takes a single step forward. The tears are welling up behind her eyes by now. “It’s Meera!”

With a snarl Cayde is on her, holding her against the wall and just breathing heavily into the crook of her neck. Meera lets out a strangled gasp when one of his hands clenches at the front of her uniform and rips it unceremoniously, sending a zipper flying off somewhere and several buckles clatter to the floor. He stands there with a handful of dirtied, wretched fabric in his hand, breathing irregularly.

“Cay—”

“Shut. _Up_,” he hisses before his lips clamp down onto her collarbone and starts sucking _hard_, making Meera cry out from the uncomfortable pressure. “_SHUT UP_!”

“G-Guardian, should I—?”

“Stay out of this, Ghost,” she manages to get out in-between the bites against her skin. “D-don’t get—_ah_—involved for now!”

“But you are—”

“She said _fuck off_!” Cayde snarls against her skin before he draws away from her and turns his head to look at her Ghost over his shoulder. “Now, go get.”

Her Ghost looks hesitant as he looks between her and her Vanguard, but even so, Meera manages to make a slow nod.

“Do as he says, Ghost,” she wheezes out. “I’ll find you later.”

The _I promise_ goes unspoken.

Cayde barely waits for the Light to finish disappearing before his head is turned back to look at her once more. His optics are aflame, but if it is hatred, lust or something else entirely, Meera is not sure.

Nothing makes sense any more.

“I—I’m sor—"

“You were supposed to _run_,” he gets out and his fingers come up to press against her cheek. Gently, almost shockingly so compared to the welcome that he gave her moments prior, they trails across her skin as he drags them down, down, down. “You were supposed to live.”

The last word comes out as a pained whine before he presses against her once more. A free hand tangles in her hair as the one obsessively pawing at her skin begins to tug at the remains of her uniform. Without a word, Meera’s hands curl up around his cheeks. The tears are still blurring her vision.

“I know,” she whispers. The tears begin to fall. “I’m so sorry, Cayde.”

“_You were supposed to run_!” he roars again and slams against her, his fist letting out a sickening _crunch_ as it goes through the wall beside her head. “You were,” he ruts against her, “Supposed to,” once more, “_SURVIVE_!”

Meera wails as she scrambles against him, tries to dig her hands into the grooves and dents of his bodyplating and maybe create some space between the two of them, but Cayde holds her tightly against him, hissing and snarling whenever she attempts to create the space.

The hand tangled in her hair leaves momentarily as he fusses with his own clothing. He yanks and tugs at his belts and buckles until they are shredded from his armor, and it does not take long before Cayde stands before her, pressing against her body as bare as when he was created. Only uttering a grunt as he tugs her leggings off of her, Cayde steps between her now-bare legs and hitches them up, drawing out a somewhat-pained moan from Meera.

This is all too much, too soon, and she sobs when his lips go back to suckling harsh, bruising kisses against her flesh.

“You left me,” he rasps and shudders as he finally presses into her. For several moments there is only him and her, both of them pressed against the wall as Cayde grinds his hips against hers, both of them reveling in the feeling of a moving body against body, no matter how depraved their current circumstances are.

His cock fills her, bruising and aching because this body is new, just resurrected, and she knows without a doubt that she will be sore in the morning.

“I can’t do this anymore, Meera,” he cries, bent over her and hiding his face against her stomach. “I—I can’t _do this again_.”

She stares up at the ceiling above her, bruises beginning to bloom across her entire body as she almost absentmindedly strokes the back of Cayde’s head. Sizzling hot oil drips from his eyes and onto her skin, but she pays it no mind as he stiffens and his hips jerk irregularly, painting both of them with his spend as he jerks away from her.

Both of them crash to the floor, heaving for breath and covered in sweat, come and dirt.

Cayde, thick trails of hot oil trailing down his facial plates, maneuvers onto his knees before her and draws her into his arms.

They are both absolutely _filthy_ and covered in varying amounts of grime, but Cayde seems to not pay it any mind as he tucks her head beneath his chin and gathers her into his lap, slowly rocking back and forth as he chants her name again and again and _again_.

And Meera does the same.


	5. Cayde III

Cayde doesn’t remember when he starts screaming.

He wants to believe that it starts when he hears Meera’s terrified screams as Oryx catches her in his talons, but he can’t be sure. He knows that at some point either Ikora or Zavala—it’s probably Big Blue, Cayde, c’mon, let’s be honest here—have to physically drag him from the Hall of Guardians when he crushes something and probably scares the living hell out of the non-Guardians working alongside the Vanguard.

But when the darkness begins to creep along the very edges of his vision, Cayde does not resist. He feels the bruising grip around his upper arm slacken as he is dragged away from reality, and a brief thought of what will happen to Zavala after he disappears is all that manages to breeze through his head before his vision goes dark.

Then Cayde is left on a familiar cliffside one more time.

Above him, the stars are still glittering in familiar patterns.

The Ghost looks down at him from above, and when Cayde sits up, he cradles his beloved Sundance carefully in his hands as he looks at her with a pained expression. One hand moves away when Cayde’s eyes catches a brief look at the smooth metal arm underneath the tattered cloth covering his frame.

“I don’t know what to do,” he croaks out and looks back at his Ghost, voice teary and wobbly, and Sundance rotates her back fins sadly in response to his misery. “I don’t know what to do, ‘Dance.”

“Is that my name?” she questions back at him, innocent and without the knowledge that bogs down Cayde’s every thought these days. “Am I a dance?”

“You’re the brightest dance of them all,” he chokes out and is graced with a happy, content chirp from his little ball of personal Light. “Like the Sun… but I’m still so lost.”

“Well then, let’s get you home, Guardian,” she decides and takes off from his palms. Cayde has to violently beat down the urge to get her back within reach. “With me as your guide, we’ll find your purpose in no time, you’ll see!”

Cayde forces a smile as he gets on his feet and follows the enthusiastic Ghost as she prattles on about everything and nothing, about how wonderful the Last City looks this time of year with snow covering every surface, about the community that keeps it all together.

At least someone is positive.

* * *

He doesn’t get Meera.

A human, yes. A woman, yes.

But where he wishes for the quiet of the Void that echoes in each step a Nightstalker takes, instead he gains the fiery, Solar-blazing stomps of a Sunbreaker as she cast her Hammers of Sol and leaves behind destruction wherever she goes.

Cayde watches her burn down everything from Crota to the Garden and everything in between, but all that he can think about is the sense of jealousy that curls up inside of his chest as he watches one success after the other.

He can’t help but feel like this… this _Titan_ is stealing the glories that Meera was meant to have.

The worst about all of this is how this one manages to get all the way to the same thing that took everything from him. Even manages to get a little past it, too.

Oryx.

His stealthdrive.

Cayde has to force himself to stand upright from the moment that the Guardian lands in the Cosmodrome and starts scouring the place that Cayde has pointed out to her from top to bottom.

He’s ashamed to say that there are more than a few times where Cayde simply checks out as he only shallowly follows along with the Ghost’s—uncomfortably familiar voice—chatter. It is only when he picks up the sound of the Guardian grumbling as they’re travelling through a vent or something that he actually focuses on the feeds once more.

_“A Jack of Spades?”_

Ah _fuck_, that’s where they are…

“Yeah,” Cayde quips, forcing himself to sound cheerful and carefree enough for them to think that nothing is wrong. _Hopefully_. “I had a whole system to keep track of things. The royal cards stood for weapons. Spades meant Häkke, clubs for Crux/Lomar, diamonds for Omolon, and hearts... huh, well hearts were for this girl I knew.” He probably looks like a wistful sap, and with how his voice grows all mellow that probably isn’t getting around the Tower Gossip mill, but screw those who thinks him weird.

_“What was her name?”_

Cayde takes in a deep—unnecessary—breath.

The pen he has been twirling in his hand breaks with a too-loud _snap_. He is _this close_ to just taking his shit and _leave_.

But he can’t. He knows that he can’t, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting it—wishing it, but then he catches Ikora’s worried glance in his direction and he straightens almost unconsciously, puts on a façade of carefree mischief.

“Uh, don't you have a stealth drive to find?”

He shuts off the comm on his end when the Ghost starts grumbling about mercurial Exo and if it wasn’t because of both Ikora and Zavala being in the same room as him right now he’d be over the walls on a sparrow a long-ass time ago.

Even in death, so long after where she should have been alive, she still manages to haunt him—she _keeps_ haunting him.

* * *

The fucking Sunbreaker brings down Oryx.

Cayde doesn’t know what to do about that. He just…

Fuck, _he just doesn’t know_.

* * *

Walking onto the Tower bridge is achingly familiar by now, but the reason for him being there is even more so.

Their satellites are gone.

The Cabal are coming, he knows this. He also knows that this is not going to end like the first time.

This time he won’t go quietly.

* * *

Ikora yanks at him when the Tower is attacked, desperate to _Blink_ the two of them into the safety of Zavala’s Ward of Dawn, but Cayde shakes his head and resists the insistent tug of her Light.

The surprised, _confused_, look that Ikora sends him makes him hurt, it really does, but Cayde has had enough of this. The charade is over and done with, and he can’t do this anymore.

At least Sundance won’t feel a thing once his Light is gone…

* * *

A new night is revealed to him.

A new bout of hopelessness envelops him.

* * *

Andal finds him wandering the City streets, cradling Sundance in his hands and completely blanketed by the snow still coming down strong.

It takes no time at all for the Hunter to drag Cayde to the nearest bar that he can where there is warmth and blankets and most importantly _alcohol_, ‘cause Cayde ain’t ever going to get used to seeing Andal up and running, no matter how many times that he is brought back.

He feels just like the first time this happened, when he practically imprinted on Andal like a baby chick does with its mother, and gratefully accepts the heaps of fleece blankets that is thrown at him when Andal returns from having raided the entire bar’s supply.

Cayde fishes out the plushiest fleece that he can find in the pile and arranges it into a nest before he places it near one of his bigger vents. Sundance floats down and nuzzles the fabric, no doubt grateful for both the warmth and softness, and for the first time in who knows how long, Cayde feels a smile tug at the edges of his mouth plates.

“I don’t get to meet many of the new ones,” Andal says from across the table they’re sitting at, nursing something steaming and sweet-smelling from a mug. “Where did you wake up?”

“The wilderness,” Cayde gets out, still utterly focused on Sundance in her little nest. He begins running his fingers down her fins in light caresses. “It was night out.”

A single, bushy brow rises in question. “How long did you walk?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs. “Hours? Days? I just followed her.”

“Your Ghost?”

“Mhmm.”

Andal quiets and sips whatever it is that he is drinking.

“How did it feel out there? In the wilderness, I mean.”

“Like home,” Cayde answers promptly because it’s the truth and he is sure as fuck not going to get pegged as a Warlock, or even worse a _Titan_. “It fel—yeah… like home.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” the Hunter across the table nods absently as a wide grin begins to spread on his face. “You’re like me, then.”

“Like you?” Cayde is going to fleece every single person in the Tower when they get to Poker Night, he already knows it. “Whaddya mean?”

“You’re a Hunter, kid.”

Cayde snorts. “Pretty sure I’m older than you.”

“Probably,” Andal nods and finishes off his beverage. There is a foamy mustache of cocoa lingering in his beard around his lips. “But I’ve got Guardian seniority, so that’s _somethin_’.”

“Sure it is, old man.”

The joke is out before Cayde can do anything to stop it, and when both of them freeze his thoughts immediately take a turn for the worse. For a few awkward seconds it feels as if time itself has stopped, but then Andal doubles over and starts banging his fist into the table as loud, hiccupping laughs rack through his body.

Cayde remains frozen still.

“Damn, you’ve got balls, kid,” Andal cackles after several minutes of uninterrupted laughter. “I swear, this’ll be the start of a beautiful friendship!”

The lump that always appears whenever Andal is on his mind grows heavier.

Well, at least he can count of Brask to keep the mood light, just a little longer.

* * *

Cayde ain’t stupid.

Now, that is a fact that has been heavily contested over the years, by Guardians, civilians and enemies alike, but the fact of the matter remains that he sure as shit knows most of the things that he prattles on about.

However, philosophy sure as shit ain’t one of ’em.

Just like all the rest of those sad schmucks who keep pondering over the hows and the whys and maybes regarding the Traveler and its mysterious ways of choosing who will rise as a defender of the Light, Cayde has no fucking idea about where to start. It doesn’t stop him from diving head first into the archives of the Tower after getting set up by Andal, and in the beginning he stays down there for as long as he possibly can.

The Warlocks give him weird looks, but that’s fine—they can fuck off for all that he cares.

Because Cayde needs to know.

From the moment that the question was birthed within his circuitry, it has hounded his every conscious hour. It is something that keeps him up too late most nights, and usually ends with Andal stomping down to his research station, digging ever-cold fingers into Cayde’s collar and dragging the violently protesting Exo back upstairs when dawn begins to brighten the horizon.

All that he needs is a god damn answer.

Can Meera be brought back before it’s her time to shine?

It is an answer that the Archives has failed to grant him, leaving Cayde with only one option left, at least here in the City.

He rolls his shoulders, breathes out, and twists a hand in the fabric of his cloak before stepping into the Speaker’s gazebo.

The Traveler hangs far above them, bathed in the gentle light of the City lying below it, and the Speaker appears deeply immersed in whatever book it is that he keeps in front of him, scribbling down line after line, as he comes to a stop not far behind him.

“Speak, Guardian,” he says, for all intents and purposes looking like he is still absorbed in whatever it is that he is writing down.

“If you… knew who would become a Guardian, would it be a good or bad thing to take a Ghost there prematurely?”

The Speaker looks up from his book and then turns to look over his shoulder at Cayde, a curious air around him as he steps closer.

“Somewhat of a curious philosophical question,” he answers and writes down a few more notes before turning around to face Cayde directly. “Certainly not a question that I would have expected you of all people to ask me, Cayde-6.”

“You know me?” Cayde states it because he _knows_, but somehow it still comes out as a question.

“I know all of the Traveler’s children,” the Speaker says as he walks closer. “The only distinction is whether or not they draw their second breath as of yet.”

“What would happen if a new one joined us before their time?”

Cayde would like nothing more than to think that the Speaker looks ever-so-slightly amused at his question, he really would, but that fucking mask of his kind of makes that impossible.

“There are rules that even the Traveler must abide, and by proxy, us, its’ servants, as well. To take a soul from the afterlife and bring it back before their time…” the Speaker hesitates for a moment and uses the time to look at Cayde rather intensely. “Is there something that you wish to tell me, Cayde-6?”

The lump in his throat grows heavier as his jaw-plating moves without any words escaping. Letting out an annoyed grunt, Cayde begins pacing back and forth with a frequent glance up at the Traveler hanging in the sky.

“I—I think,” he stops pacing, fidgets instead as the pressure inside of him rises once more, demands that he keeps moving. “I _know_ someone who isn’t a Guardian as of yet, but they _will_ be.”

The Speaker stills immediately, his hands falling limply down his sides as he takes in Cayde’s, quite frankly, ridiculously-sounding words now that he’s saying them _out loud_.

“A-an—there ain’t anyone I’ve been able to tell ‘bout all of this, yeah, because it sounds _fucking crazy_, but it’s true! I’ve seen her, human, a Hunter, jus—just fuckin’ _waltz_ out there with her Ghost and her gun and come back blazing like a supernova. She downs Hive and Kells like it’s _nothin’ _and I’m the one who keeps sending her out there.”

“You are Vanguard?”

Cayde nods. He knows that he most likely looks miserable, but at this point he is so far past caring that it ain’t even funny anymore.

“And this is not something that you might have experienced… before?” the Speaker questions and gestures to Cayde’s body as a whole. “You are certain that this is not a distant memory of the time before you became an Exo?”

“It’s not,” Cayde shakes his head. “I know it ain’t some woman from back when I was human, Speaker. _I know it_! And I sure ain’t no material for Vanguard as it stands. Not then, not now.”

The Speaker hums and crosses his arms, still looking directly at Cayde.

“You must understand that although you might know where this person is right now, where their body rests in peace… to force them back here with their future Ghost or through some other means would be seen as desecration of the Light, Cayde-6. There is a reason why a Guardian is brought back when they are, and we must remember that although the Traveler blessed us with its Light, that does not mean that we can simply do as we please with it. We are the Traveler’s servants, not gods of our own.”

“I know,” Cayde chokes out past the lump in his throat. “But I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if I had her back again.”

“Your Guardian’s time to brighten our days will come, Cayde-6,” the Speaker soothes, or at least he does a mighty fine attempt at it, and puts both hands on Cayde’s shoulders. “Until it comes to that, enjoy the time that you have with your friends and comrades. Enjoy the calm before the storm that it sounds like will arrive in the far future. You do not have to stand alone to hold vigil over the City, and frankly it does not do Hunters any favors to be so still. You of all people should know this.”

Would you look at that, the Speaker knows humor. Will wonders never cease?

“I hope that my words help you in this troubled time that you find yourself ensnared within, Cayde-6, and know that I am always willing to listen should you need it.”

“Y-yeah, thanks,” he mutters as he drags himself out of the Speaker’s grasp. “I—I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Until next time, Cayde-6,” the Speaker nods and steps back to his books, arms clasped behind him as he watches the Exo leave.

* * *

The books give him nothing.

Writings recorded by the few Thanatonauts allowed within the archive are a moot point, too.

Andal looks on when Cayde scatters his research with a roar of anger, yelling until his voicebox cuts out and leaves him sputtering static noises for the rest of the day, as not even his Sundance wants to heal it.

The senior Hunter crosses his arms and gives Cayde a look of disapproval. “You need to calm down, Cayde.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Cayde snarls and rounds upon Andal, eyes ablaze with fury. His friend just looks on in silent judgement, and it does not take long for Cayde to turn back to stare at the now bare table. A few moments later and the table is flying across the room. The resulting _crack_ has Andal flinch, even as Cayde stands motionless and waits for his fans to begin cooling down his overheating frame. “Fucking _bullshit_!”

“Tell me what’s wrong, Cayde,” Andal is pleading with him now and steps around the overturned table to put a hand on his lower arm. “_Cayde_.”

The Exo turns away and presses the heels of his hands against his optics, hissing obscenities. “You can’t.”

“You’re damn right I can’t until you tell me how.”

“No, for fuck’s sake, Brask—you _can’t_.”

“Cayde, you’re being ridiculous!”

“She’s still out there, Andal!” Cayde finally snaps. “She’s still out there, _alone_, and I can’t do _shit about it_!”

He is heaving for breath that he doesn’t need, optics flaring irregularly from the myriad of signals being sent through his systems, as Andal freezes. In one perfect moment of clarity, as his systems are working at the very height of their capabilities, Cayde watches the Hunter in front of him go completely still and then gain an inquisitive look in his eyes that he knows all too well.

_Fuck_. He’s said too much.

“‘She’… ‘she’ who?”

_Double fuck_.

His entire body is quivering from the tension held in his entire frame. It churns and whirls inside of him, builds and builds and builds until it feels as if he is just about ready to _burst _from it all.

“Cayde…” Sundance flashes into existence over his shoulder and gently butts against his cheek. “Cayde, you _need_ to tell someone. This isn’t healthy.”

No doubt he looks horrible to Andal right now, and if he had still been organic, Cayde has no doubt that he would have circles beneath his eyes and wild, unruly hair.

He settles with collapsing onto the ground in a tangle of metal limbs and a wrong cloak wrapped around his shoulders.

“Meera,” Cayde finally croaks out.

Her name makes him exhale, drains the fight completely out of him. Faintly, he’s aware of Andal crouching down beside him, carefully wrapping an arm around his shoulders and dragging him up against his chest.

“It’s alright, Cayde, we’ll figure it out. Whatever it is that you need done, tell me and I’ll help you.”

“You _can’t_, Andal,” Cayde shakes his head stubbornly. “No one can.”

“Shush, none of that shit,” knowing that Andal is smiling at him right now almost makes him vomit. “Cayde, you can tell me anything.”

“I’m serious, Andal. You can’t help me, not with this.”

“Why?”

“Because Meera, she…” Cayde swallows. Alright, cowboy, time to bite your own bullet here. “She’s not alive yet.”

A pin could probably be heard if it dropped inside the private study room, _that_ is how quiet it all becomes once Cayde’s secret is out of the bag. Andal sits there, opening and closing his mouth as he takes in—or at the very least _tries _to—what it is that Cayde is actually saying.

“I—I, uh—”

“You don’t have to say anythin’, Andal. Honestly, I’d prefer it if you didn’t…”

“Well_, fuck that_,” Andal snaps, causing Cayde to involuntarily flinch away as far as the wall lets him. “What the Hell have you been researching down here, Cayde?”

Cayde scowls. The walls shoot up. “Ain’t your damn business.”

“Well, it’s going to _be_ my fucking business when it involves someone from my own damn pack!” swiftly, Andal gets up from his crouch to wander over and have a look at the different papers and book titles that litter the floor. Whatever he sees sure ain’t what he expects, at least that’s what Cayde determines from the pale face that Andal jerks in his direction. “Traveler’s crack, Cayde, what have you been _doing_?!”

“Ain’t your fuckin’ business, Brask,” he mumbles this time and lets out a static-filled cough. “My problem, _alone_.”

“Cayde-6!” Andal thunders and if Cayde isn’t scared of what might happen from this before, well… he certainly is _now_.

He is pulled up from his slouching on the ground and pressed against the wall. Cayde doesn’t resist.

Instead he presses on his cloaking device.

“Cayde this doesn’t—” Andal begins, only to narrow his eyes as Cayde’s body disappears from view. “Wha—_hey_! Cayde, get your scrappy ass _back here_!”

A swift kick to the human’s knees sends Andal stumbling away from him long enough for Cayde to get out of the room before his fellow Hunter even knows what is happening.

“_CAYDE_!”

He doesn’t stop, not for a single moment.

* * *

The Cosmodrome is a dump if there’s ever been one.

It’s snowing. A thick sheet of white blankets the entire area, only broken by the occasional animal or Fallen scuttling across the open spaces. Cayde is sure he’s sticking out like a sore thumb out here in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with his cloak and knives and whatever else. The fact that he’s bright blue, teal and white sure doesn’t help him either, there’s that too.

Sundance’s questions are all deflected with silence, he’s in no damn mood to talk right now, and the two of them keep on walking through open stretches of space and through small corridors within the various buildings scattered across the area until they come to a cliffside.

There’s one stubborn tree remaining on the very perch of it. A few withered saplings sprout around it. Cayde couldn’t care less, he’s not here for the trees.

He’s here for the skeleton lying in the derelict car not too far away.

Brittle remains of fingers are draped across the steering wheel and there in the driver’s seat sits the slumped remains of the woman he loves.

Cayde stands there in the knee-high snow for who knows how long before he wrenches open the rusted door on the passenger’s seat and settles himself inside.

“Fuck, I—I don’t know what to do, Meera,” he whispers, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore.”

Nothing but the howling winds answer him.

He can’t look to the side, can’t stand to see her remains just left like that to the elements, because if he _does_ then he acknowledges that she really _is_ dead right now, and that is quite frankly more than he can handle at the moment.

“I wish that you could come back now. I want you to come back and meet Andal and see the world back when it wasn’t as complicated. Fuck, I jus—I want you to _live_, is that really too much to ask?” By the end of his little tirade he leans his head against where the airbag would have been if it hadn’t rotted away centuries ago.

Sundance appears in a flash. Her one eye blinks at her Guardian and Cayde reaches out a hand to butt it gently against her fins.

“I think… I think I’ll give it one more try,” Cayde says. But this is more for his own sake than for anyone else’s. A hand reaches inside his vest and pulls out a worn, chipped knife. “I’ll give it one more try.”

The screech of metal against metal grates on his ears, but nonetheless Cayde carves another line in his arm with no one but his Ghost and the corpse of a brilliant Hunter as his witnesses.

“I just… I wish that you could _be_ here…”

There is pressure behind his eyes, phantom aches of a body long long with organic needs and organic desires. Nothing that he can experience in the same way as he is now.

Sundance never says a word to him, but that doesn’t make it harder for him to detect her disapproval.

The wind keeps howling.

But then warmth settles around his shoulders. A sigh, feminine, reaches his auditory module as the sensation of arms wrapping around him from behind makes itself known.

Cayde stiffens.

“You are a good man, Cayde-6,” a voices whispers, an achingly familiar voice, and if Cayde’s breath hitches it is unmentioned. “Still so devoted… after all this time.”

“Meera…”

This can’t be real, it _isn’t_ real. It can’t be, because Meera lies beside him, dead, and is nothing but bones and dust.

Sundance looks at him, questioning, but Cayde ignores her as he instead fully focuses on this new presence behind him.

“It won’t be long, my love,” Meera’s visage says gently—softly—and she appears before him from seemingly nothing. “You know what will happen.”

“You’re not real…” he whispers and shuts off feed to his optics. “You’re _not real_.”

“Why can’t I be real? Is this not what you wanted—to see me again, alive and whole?”

“You ain’t here. I’m hallucinatin’.”

Faintly he can hear Sundance’s worried questions, but it’s like there’s a fog or hazy film covering everything around him—everything except him and the ghost of a woman still dead.

“Perhaps.” She sounds amused. “Perhaps not. You certainly won’t find out with your eyes shut, now, will you?”

Cayde’s eyes stubbornly remain shut.

“You want me to come back,” Meera’s voice whispers and Cayde flinches backwards when the phantom sensation of lips presses against his mouth. “Our thoughts are aligned in that. I know how you can do it.”

“It’s forbidden. The Traveler—”

“Since when did you let rules limit yourself? The Void has shown me such things in the grand scheme of things… all you need to do is wish it, and my return would be imminent.”

The pressure from keeping his eyes firmly shut is beginning to send streaks of pain racing through his skull.

Her hands—_gentle subtle cruel harsh beckoning_—strokes his jawline and her lips press against his once more.

Cayde does not resist her this time. The fog that he almost senses rolling over him thickens until it feels like he can barely even _breathe_, but even so she never lets go of him as she pulls him in further and further and _further_ until the only thing that remains is him and her, entwined forever, just as it was always meant to _be_.

He opens his eyes, stares in shock as he sees Meera—alive, smiling, floating in the air before him. A smile beckons him to her—calls him like a siren.

“And would our reunion not be the sweetest relief, _O lover mine_?”

And Cayde is lost.

* * *

It takes a while for him to figure out exactly what is needed—experiments with Light and its various uses ain’t exactly one of his major strengths, after all.

Meera is with him every step of the way, always hovering just behind his shoulder, never letting him catch more than the corner of a smile, but always encouraging him.

He never clarifies as Sundance pokes and prods at him, needling him for answers, and the silence continues as he slaves over notes and research papers from every philosopher that the City has ever seen live within her walls.

When the City’s resources prove to be lacking, that is when Cayde decides to reach for the stars and that is when he disappears into space without a word.

Meera’s hand squeezes his shoulder reassuringly the entire time.

Months are spent out in the darkest reaches of space—hunting for lost knowledge, delving into ruins and locations best left alone—but no place is too dangerous nor too far for Cayde to try. Meera is counting on him to do this for her, to bring her back to him safe and whole, and he’ll be _damned_ if he lets her down now of all times, after so many attempts.

But space yields nothing conclusive, and Cayde returns to the City as quietly as when he left originally.

Andal is waiting in the hangar when he lands.

The older Guardian never says a word as he strides forward and traps Cayde in a bonecrushing hug, whispering half-meant threats and pleads for him to _never_ do that shit ever again. And Cayde hugs him back, for Meera might be the one thing that still keeps him going at this point, but Andal is his brother—his _everything_—and that cannot be erased, no matter what.

In the days and weeks following his return to the City, Andal keeps hovering, never close enough for it to be stifling, but it seems like he is always near Cayde.

Cayde doesn’t understand the reasoning behind it all, but bemusedly allows it, if only to assuage Andal’s apparent fear that he will simply up and disappear again.

He would never do that.

After all, his work is far from finished, and he tells Andal as much. He tells him of Meera, of everything that he has planned for when she is returned to him, and Andal nods—Andal _understands_.

All that he needs to make it happen is time.

In time, it will be well worth all of it—of that he is certain.

After all, Meera would never lie to him, would she?

* * *

When he figures it out it is in the middle of the night.

Meera’s body lies against his, both of them naked under the stars, and Sundance blessedly quiet for once instead of her continuous protests against all that he does.

“Light,” Meera whispers as she moves up and straddles him, sinks down on his cock and gently rocks her hips against his. “The Light is how you will bring me back. I know it.”

Cayde currently can’t feel much except the pleasure that is busy flooding his body, but he nods and lets out a garbled, static-y moan when her muscles constrict around him, causing him to spill inside of her. He feels pleasantly tingly as she continues her rocking motion, forces the pleasure into pain into pleasure again—ignoring his pleas for mercy as she chases completion.

When she collapses against him, humming with his Light and staining his abdominal plating with their combined come that leaks from between her legs, she looks at him with hooded eyes—lazy(_dangerous_)—and kisses him.

“We ended with your Light calling to me. Let us begin with it too.”

* * *

It all makes sense to him.

As disoriented and fog-headed as he feels the closer that he gets to the Cosmodrome, at the same time, Cayde feels relief and desire battle within him to finally see this fulfilled.

The sun is high in the sky by the time that he arrives at the cliffside. Blue skies with nary a cloud above him, and Cayde _breathes_.

This is it.

This is when he’ll do it.

He just wishes that he had time to say goodbye.

* * *

Separating his Light from his body hurts like a bitch, surprise, surprise.

He hasn’t expected it, even less so the way that Sundance starts screaming at him the very moment that she realizes exactly what it is that he is doing.

“_Cayde_!” she wails as she desperately tries to keep his Light anchored within the two of them. “Stop, _please_! You don’t know what you’re doing, you absolute idiot!”

Cayde doesn’t say a word and instead pulls _harder_.

At some point she must have sent off a distress call because Cayde feels the familiar prickle of a Guardian’s Light poke at his at some point. He has no idea who it is, probably no one good, and he has little care for whoever it is as he continues to pry the last bits of Light from Sundance and himself.

It’s almost done.

_Almost_.

* * *

Meera comes to in a burst of twisted, multicolored Light that weaves her bones together and breathes life into her once more.

But something’s wrong, Cayde feels it immediately through the thick fog that is clouding his mind. It feels as if he is seeing everything through a hazy film that dulls the edges just enough for him to begin wondering if any of it is actually real.

It certainly _feels _real as he cradles Meera’s now-living body in his arms.

But something is still wrong.

She doesn’t… she doesn’t look right.

“Cayde…?”

Her voice is grating, like metal whining over abuse.

“Hey there, Mee,” he mutters as he carefully strokes his fingers across her ashen, freezing cheeks. “Lookin’ good, hotshot.”

“C-Cayde, I—”

“Shh,” he interrupts her and gathers her closer to him. A shrug of his shoulder has his cloak fall to the ground and he frees a hand to begin wrapping it around her. “Don’t talk.”

“B-but, Cayde, I—”

“Don’t talk,” he repeats, more firmly this time. The lifeless shape of Sundance lies abandoned in the snow. “Save your strength until we’re out of here.”

“W-what’s going… on?” she manages to get out before a vicious bout of coughing interrupts her. “I—I can’t—_oomph_!”

With a groan she heaves and Cayde winces as he feels the warm, slick mixture of blood and bile coat the front of his armor. She is deteriorating faster than he had thought she would, and he ain’t got long now before things go straight to shit.

“Cayde,” she pleads once more. “Cayde, _please_!”

He shushes her again before pressing his plates to her forehead in a mock of a kiss.

“Something’s wrong,” Meera cries and shudders in his arms. “I—I don’t—”

The sound of Fallen screeches cuts her off and Cayde stiffens.

Not now.

No.

No, no, no, no_nonononONONONONONO_!

This can’t happen _now_!

“Cayde?” she is crying now, the blood is running faster and he can’t—he can’t—_HE CAN’T_—

A shot ricochets off a nearby rusted car and Cayde grunts when the projectile digs into his midsection.

“Hold on,” he pleads, presses his lips to hers and his hand, drenched in blood—hers, fists the fabric that he has wrapped her in. “Stay alive.”

Cayde has fought worse odds before and won.

But he’s always has his Sundance with him there to back him up, to get him on his feet after faltering, and he doesn’t have her now.

He never realized how empty he felt until she was gone.

* * *

The Guardian he felt earlier, Andal—because of course it’s Andal who received the signal that Sundance sent out, finds him in the Cosmodrome, sitting under a tree in bloom with the sun and sky above him, the still body of a Guardian in his arms, and the brutalized corpses of Fallen strewn across the small hill.

“Cayde,” Andal breathes and rather uncharacteristically hurls his beloved sniper rifle onto the ground as he comes to an abrupt halt right in front of him. “Cayde, what did you _do_?”

_You owe him nothing_, Meera’s voice whispers in his ear, stubbornly clings to him. _You’ve done so well, and I came back, didn’t I?_

Cayde knows without looking up for even a moment that there is confusion on Andal’s face—that his brother in all but blood simply cannot comprehend why Cayde has done as he has. If he looks up, ignores the shocked look that flickers across Andal’s face at the sight of him, and so, he simply continues to focus entirely on the still woman in his arms instead.

The air is warm, yes, but her body is cold and beginning to stiffen. Even so his Light must have managed to do _something_, because for all intents and purposes it looks as if she is merely sleeping. Meera’s forehead is unworried by the machinations of Hive, Fallen, Vex, Cabal and Taken. Her skin is unblemished by the actions of war. Her lips are chapped from the ever-present cool wind that blows across the Russian expanses, but that is it.

She is… she’s just asleep, nothing more. Yeah—yeah, he can work with this.

“I wanted her to meet you, Andal. All I wanted was for you to _know her_.”

_O lover mine… so brave… so _loyal_…_

“Her who?” Andal crouches down in front of him and his hand hesitates in the air in front of him. “Cayde, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what is going on here.”

“My Guardian, Andal,” Cayde mutters and strokes his fingers across a cold, lifeless cheek. “I told you ‘bout her. It’s Meera.”

He still doesn’t look up as Andal lets out a strangled noise and coughs to clear his throat.

“Traveler’s Lig—Cayde, she was _real_?!”

Andal sounds… confused. But there is nothing to be confused about, is there? Cayde is _so sure_ that he’s told Andal all about Meera, all about her exploits and jokes and her smiles and how she laughs when he is being deliberately obtuse. How she’s quick enough to aim but slower to actually shoot…

It has never occurred to him that Andal has merely been _humoring him_ and not really taking him serious whatsoever.

“You didn’t believe me…”

“Cayde, would _you_ have believed _me_ if we had been in reversed roles?! Traveler above, you talked about her like she was some sort of fantasy hero made real, for crying out loud! What was I supposed to think?”

“You were supposed to believe me. You were s’posed to _be there_.”

“What would you have had me do, Cayde?” Andal pleads and once more tries to reach out towards him, but Cayde draws away from him, eliciting a frustrated huff. “I love you, you’re my brother, but there are things that I cannot condone doing, not even for you.”

“It was meant to be enough. My Light was supposed to have _helped her_!”

“You can’t play God, Cayde. Not even Guardians get to choose who lives and who dies,” Andal says softly and wraps his hands around Cayde’s, enveloping Meera’s at the same time. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t get it!” Cayde snarls and rears back, pressing himself against the tree trunk behind him. “I was supposed to save her! This would have brought her back, back to those who needed her! _It was supposed to work_!”

He cradles her closer, presses her face against the crook of his neck as he rocks back and forth.

“It was supposed to _work_, Andal…”

“Cayde…”

When he looks up there are tears running down Andal’s cheeks. For once he sees the confused, loving man behind the bravado and shitty jokes and jovial personality—his _brother_ who would do whatever it took to keep those he loves safe. And there is a brief moment where he sees everything with perfect clarity.

“_Name’s Andal Brask, a pleasure to meet you, miss.”_

_“Meera Quill, Cayde has told me so much about you, Andal.”_

He sees how they would have met, in the courtyard or in the hangar or maybe in the private gardens in the middle of summer with heat bearing down on everyone and cooled drinks readily available. Andal has always been made for the summer, the man loves the heat and everything that comes with it—just like Cayde, and ain’t that just one more reason why the two of them fit so well together, huh…

But he sees it perfectly in front of him.

Andal would smile, _of course_, and show off his stupid fucking dimple. Meera would thaw before long, jesting about everything and nothing at all, coo at Andal’s dimple like all the ladies always does, but still send Cayde that… that smile.

That one smile that would always, only, ever be for him.

They would laugh together, be a team together, he could see all of this so perfectly clear as if he was looking through the cleanest of crystal and not at the tattered remains of his sanity.

“Your Light, Cayde… it’s gone.”

“I gave it to her. I wanted her to _live_.”

“Was it worth it?”

“I didn’t have enough time. Only got to tell her hello before she faded again. I wasn’t enough to keep her here.”

“Cayde, if even half of what you’ve been telling me over the years is true, it just isn’t her time. Let her rest, Cayde. To take her back here before her time is cruel, it would never have ended well for either of you.”

“This is not what I wanted…”

“Cayde,” Andal’s voice shakes. “Oh, _Cayde_…”

“I can’t—I can’t do this anymore, Andal. Can’t go through this shit again. _Can’t_ _lose her_.”

“It’ll be alright, Cayde, I promise.”

Andal is right about a lot of things, in Cayde’s opinion. But this… no, this is something that he doesn’t have any say over.

Time won’t fix this.

Nothing that he can do will fix things.

At this point, the bullet is _welcome_.

_Is this not what you wished for, O lover mine? Did my spinning of reality not satisfy your desires?_

* * *

A new turn.

A new chance.

Cayde is fucking sick of it all.

* * *

Andal once more dies a warrior’s death and Cayde once more takes his place.

This time it feels like he swallows something bitter as he repeats the words that the Speaker says to him, as he swears to safeguard the Last City.

Traveler, but he is tired.

Tired of the struggle. Tired of watching everything that he loves and cares for turn to ashes in front of him—and all because something in his past or present or future gets fucked up time after time after time after _fucking time_.

He is just so damn tired.

He sees the sticky blood from Meera on his hands every time that he closes his eyes. Sees the horror-stricken face of Andal when he realizes exactly what Cayde has done in the name of _love_.

Sees Sundance’s shell as the last Light leaves her, when she becomes nothing more than an empty piece of machinery, gleaming in the setting sun over the Cosmodrome.

Cayde is simply… _tired_.

* * *

There comes a time where he loses count, where he is driven out far enough to forget even about the gouges in his arms and legs that he keeps making to keep track of time.

The fog continues, clouds his every waking moment—keeps reminding him of when he saw Meera, alive and well before her time, promising him an eternity’s worth of treasures if only he did this _one_ thing for her.

Where has he heard of this before?

* * *

The sound of birds chirping outside his window wakes him up.

His bedroom is otherwise quiet. There is a strip of sunlight that is escaping in through his cheap curtain, painting everything in a bright, in-your-face color and warming the room to an almost uncomfortable degree.

The warm, soft body beside him drags him out of the lethargy that makes his mind feel like it is hundreds of times heavier than it actually is.

Meera.

Without a word he summons Sundance.

“Do you see her?”

His voice is desperate, on the verge of breaking, because he _can’t _do this again.

“Of course I do,” the Ghost responds, sounding just a little bit confused at his question. “Do you want me to leave you alone for the rest of the day, Cayde?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, ‘Dance,” he nods. Swallows heavily when Meera lets out a mumble in her sleep and a soft snore escapes her slumbering body. “That—yeah, that’d be _great_.”

“Will do, Vanguard,” Sundance chirps and then she is gone in a small bubble of Light.

The morning is still early. He can smell the scents of the City as it begins to wake up through the opened window in his bedroom.

And Cayde lies down again, presses his body flush against Meera’s back and closes his eyes once more.

She is back.

She is safe.

And he praises whatever gods are listening that he can hear her heartbeat once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, yep... that happened ._.  
thoughts on the chapter would be appreciated, as always :)


	6. Meera III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> edit 25/6-20: fixed some weird spacing happening between italics and normal letters

It’s sometime around midday when Meera finally stirs awake. 

The room is comfortably warm, even if she is sore all over from what transpired last night. Something heavy lies across her side, weighing her down and keeping her tucked against a firm, comfortably warm chest. 

Oh yeah. Cayde. 

She blinks a few times, her vision blurry from sleep, before attempting to move out from under Cayde’s arm. Her bladder is uncomfortably full and it feels like something disgustingly furry crawled into her mouth and died a few weeks ago, not to mention that she smells of oil and sex and sweat. 

Under any other circumstances she would have reveled in the fact that she was all alone in an apartment with her boyfriend/superior and a comfy bed, but she is sore and she smells and she needs to _pee_. 

Meera grunts and gingerly tries to pry Cayde’s arm loose enough for her to slip under it. It takes a few tries, but out she comes and ends up staring down at the sleeping man in the bed. 

_ Oh, Cayde_… 

Even in sleep he looks tense, as if he is afraid that something is going to jump out from around the corner and attack him. The blanket is tangled around his waist, revealing his bare chest, and the sight of it has tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes. 

Gouges are dragged from where his clavicle would be all the way down to his abdomen area. The synth-mesh making out his skin is thankfully untouched, but where there are metal plates covering his body, the gouges are marring the otherwise smooth, intricately shaped surfaces. For a moment she almost reaches out to touch him, but something… holds her back. A shiver runs down her back and she rolls her shoulders, as if to rid herself of the sensation. 

Her hand lingers mid-air for a few more moments before she finally retracts it and backs out of the bedroom, one eye on Cayde the entire time until she is completely out of there. 

When she closes the door to the bathroom, Meera leans against it for a few moments as she vehemently tries to keep from sobbing out loud. Her lip quivers uncontrollably as she tucks her chin against her breast and her arms come up to wrap around herself. She refuses to let out the sobs that are screaming inside of her chest to be let out, refuses to do _anything _that will wake up the man still sleeping in their bedroom. Everything is crashing all around her, from him practically flinging himself at her last night to how after that first bout of wild desperate sex he took her into that damn bedroom and wouldn’t stop showering her with bites and caresses and scratches no matter how many times he made her fall apart in his arms. 

She has no idea of what he has done or what has happened. She isn’t even sure if she actually _ wants _ to know. 

But what she _does _need to do is lift up her head and face the day, be that with a sex-mauled body or not. 

However, what Meera sees in the mirror has her gaping. 

Several prevalent markings haphazardly snake their way up from her breasts to her neck to her mouth. A few of them are more purple than red, but what is similar with all of them is their shape. With miniscule variations, every single one of the markings are almost perfect indents of Cayde’s mouth plates. Gently poking at one of the bruises, Meera hisses when a burst of pain blooms beneath her fingertip. Her eyes trail further up until she reaches her lips. They are puffy and red with a small scab forming near her left corner, telling her enough of what happened last night. Going up further shows that her eyes aren’t much better what with looking like she hasn’t slept for a month. 

By the Light, she’s almost afraid to take stock of the rest of her body. 

A knock on the door startles her out of her stupor, and Meera’s eyes shoot up to meet Cayde’s as he pokes his head inside the bathroom. The look in his eyes almost makes her break out in tears right then and there. 

“Cayde…” 

“You weren’t there,” he says quietly and steps inside the bathroom. Without another word he walks over and is about to wrap his arms around her before he abruptly stops. Meera follows his eyes through the mirror until she spots the bruises that cover most of her shoulders and neck. 

She swallows. 

“Cayde, it’s al—” 

“That is _not _alright, Meera,” Cayde snaps and immediately steps back from her, his hands clenched almost uncomfortably so. “Traveler above, I _hurt _you!” 

He looks heartbroken. She can tell from how his optics dim, from how the plates making out his brows droop. It feels like a knife being twisted into her heart. 

Meera’s eyes lower and she feels the familiar, searing burn behind her eyes as the tears begin to well up once more. 

“I—I don’t—” she hiccups and turns around to look at him directly. “C-Cayde, I don’t know what to do.” 

Cayde hesitantly reaches for her and lets out a soft _ oomph _ when Meera falls into his arms. Despite the fact that she practically attaches herself to him, Cayde’s arms are slow to wrap around her, and even when they eventually do so, it is with the most care and attention that she has seen or felt him perform in a long, long while. 

But still, he holds her and lets her smear snot and tears all over his ruined body armor. 

“I did—” he coughs, voice broken. “I did something terrible to you. I was _stupid _and _impatient_ and too damn blind to see the trap that was sitting right in front of me until it was too late.” 

Meera draws back and looks up at him, frowning. The hand that she has held tightly against his chest instead smooths over one of his pectoral plates, and she can’t help but let out a wobbly laugh when she senses the shiver that runs through his body at her ministrations. 

Anything to distract the two of them from this shithole of a situation. 

“What… what do you mean?” 

Cayde flinches and his eyes dart anywhere in the bathroom than rest on her. 

“Cayde?” 

His breathing turns ragged as he suddenly wraps her in a tight embrace and falls to his knees, bringing her with him. 

“I don’t deserve you,” he chokes out. “I don’t deserve you, not after what I’ve done.” 

“Cayde, it—it’s alright, I’m here,” she soothes. “You’re alright, it’s over. You’re alright now.” 

The noise that wrenches itself out of his voice box sears her eardrums, but Meera remains as tightly pressed against him as physically possible. 

“You were there. Or… or at least _somethin’ _was there with your body and your voice, but it… _ it wasn’t you_, Mee. It kept tellin’ me that I needed to… to bring ya back to me. That it was oh so easy. Only thing was, it wasn’t. And it cost me everythin’.” 

“Shh,” she whispers. “It’ll be alright.” 

“But I—” he hiccups. “I took her Light, Meera! Sundance’s Light, I… I_ took _it and it didn’t work. I killed my own fucking Ghost!” 

It’s at this point that he breaks down completely, hiding in her arms and sobbing uncontrollably into her neck. Meera sits on her knees on the floor of Cayde’s bathroom, her eyes wide and her mouth opening and closing again and again as she struggles to find something to say—_anything_ to fill the void that suddenly has erupted from beneath them. But she can’t find anything. There are no clever quips or sweet nothings that she can whisper to him—nothing that can even _begin _to describe the tumultuous chaos that is uprooting everything inside her head. All that there is in there is her love and confusion and despair, because _something_ has hurt him, has hurt her Cayde so bad that he can barely even stand to look at her right now. 

Meera feels the tears again. It seems like that’s all there is to do today, nothing but tears and tears and then more tears. 

Cayde is whispering frantically into her neck, soaking her already matted hair with oily residue, the best that Exo bodies can substitute tears with, and clutching her frantically. 

“You were dead, I didn’t save you, you were _dead __without Light_,” he is bordering hysteric as his voice rises in pitch. “Dead, dead, dead, nothing there to save you, you were _dead_!” 

Meera doesn’t remember. 

And if she is completely honest, Meera would much rather keep it that way. 

She suddenly straddles him, forces him to remove his face from her neck and immediately she presses her lips to his. 

Meera bites and nips and caresses and hurts and loves and gives everything to Cayde. Every sense of love that she can muster, she presses into her Light—envelops the two of them in it—and Cayde gasps when the sensations hit him. 

“You’re a good man, Cayde-6,” she whispers. Cayde tenses beneath her, tries to jerk away, but she keeps a firm grip on his jaw, pressing more gentle kisses now to the slope of his jawline. It doesn’t take much for her to force him to look at her. “And I trust you. More than anyone, do you understand? We’ll figure this out, I _promise _you.” 

“How can you say that?” he asks. “How can you even_ think_ that when you’re covered in bruises an—” 

“You were not alright, Cayde,” Meera interrupts him. “Last night… last night was a fuckup of epic proportions, I’m not refusing to acknowledge that, but you were not okay, Cayde. Neither of us were.” 

“You disappeared. Oryx, he—” 

“Fuck Oryx. Fuck everything about him! Yes, I lost against him, but that doesn’t mean that we should just give up, Cayde! We need to figure this out!” 

Cayde stills beneath her. His hands come to an uneasy rest on her hips where he lets them draw meaningless, drifting symbols. “And what if it ain’t possible? What if we’re never gonna figure out what the Hell is trapping us in this loop?” 

“Then we won’t find out that time, but we’ll just have to keep going. We can’t afford not to, Cayde.” 

He falls silent, instead heaving for breath that he probably isn’t even aware that he is holding. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks, voice quiet and ragged—stretched too thin. 

And Meera nods. 

* * *

It takes a bath, some food and the two of them wrapped up in each other on Cayde’s disaster of a worn-in couch before there is even the slightest hint of normalcy to find between them. 

As loathe as Cayde seems to be in terms of letting her be more than a hand’s reach away, at the same time he is infinitely more careful than usual as he rubs aloe into her bruised skin. Every inch is carefully brushed over with the pads of his fingers before he dips them into the mixture and begins working it into her skin, never pressing harder than absolutely necessary. It feels more like having a butterfly land here or there on her back than it actually being Cayde sitting with her in his lap, rubbing away at her skin in desperate attempts to make her bruises disappear, but Meera is a simple woman; she will take what she can get at the moment. 

Anything to feel him be this close to her again, especially after what happened last. 

The memory of Oryx’s grinning, horrible visage as his thralls holds her down flashes through her mind and she breaks out into shivers. Cayde’s ministrations behind her stop immediately and his hands fly up to hover awkwardly over her shoulders. 

“Mee?” he asks, cautiously and sounding more like he would love nothing more than to envelop her in his arms and kiss her troubles away. 

Meera just wants him to do all of that and _more_. 

“‘m fine,” she sniffles. “Jus’ tired, is all.” 

One hand cautiously drags her backwards until she is pressed flush against his chest and Meera lets out the ragged breath that she has been holding. The hand moves to caress up and down her arm, making out a soothing pattern that she finds herself leaning into almost automatically. 

“It’s alright,” Cayde mumbles. It almost sounds like he believes himself when he’s saying it, too. “We’ll be alright, Mee.” 

She doesn’t know if they are—if they’ll ever be. But what she _does _know is that the two of them don’t have that choice. 

Not anymore. 

“I haven’t been able to do it this time around, Cayde,” she sighs. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Oryx...” 

Cayde’s hand on her arm squeezes gently. “Mee, it’s only been two times—” 

“Two times isn’t good enough, Cayde!” she explodes and yanks herself out of his grasp. “I have done it before! The Dreadnought was conquered the very first time that I entered it! On Phobos I survived without seeing my G-Ghost be crushed right in front of me by Oryx and his horde! But suddenly I keep failing, and _I don’t understand it_!” 

“Meera, this isn’t—” 

“No matter how I twist and turn it inside my head, it doesn’t make sense. No matter how many different things I tried back in that Prison, I always kept on being sent back to that fucking airlock before Petra briefed us—it keeps happening and_ I don’t UNDERSTAND_!” 

She screams in the end, the frustration brimming over. A flash of light out of the corner of her eye signals the emergence of her Ghost, and Meera turns around with a hand stretched out towards him. Wordlessly he floats over and settles in her hand, and she brings it up to her neck. 

“I don’t understand, Cayde,” she cries and turns around. “I—please, I just don’t_ understand_.” 

Her Ghost nuzzles against her skin and Meera folds in on herself as she settles against the floor on her knees. She feels him prod ever so gently against her mind, silently asking if he can help. Meera shakes her head and weeps; this is not something that her Ghost can help her with, no matter how much he would ever want to. 

Cayde, however, sits on the couch in silence. His hand hangs suspended in motion. Sundance appears behind him and butts against the tip of his horn, giving him a soft _chirp_ before settling on his shoulder.

“What did you wish for, Meera?” he asks quietly. 

“W-what?” 

When Meera looks up at him from where she has been sitting, crying into her hands, it is with a hiccup in her throat and throbbing eyes. She doesn’t understand, _cannot_ for the life of her comprehend what it is that Cayde is talking about. 

“Before this began… when we were in the Prison, Meera. I—I need to know if you wished for anything.” 

Her frown deepens. “No, but I—wait.” 

“What?” Cayde focuses in on her immediately. 

“I… there was something that I said, to Zalli, I mean.” 

“What, Meera?” he steps closer, one hand hovering above her arm. “Meera, what did you say to him?” 

She frowns. “I said… there was so much blood everywhere, and the smoke…” for a moment her voice trails off. Her mind seems as if thousands of miles away. “I told him that I wished that there had been another way…” 

Exo can be damn hard to read, even at the best of times when you’ve known one for years on end, but Cayde is so damn expressive in everything that he does. 

Meera sees it when he stiffens, one hand curled around his Ghost. He leans forward and wordlessly reaches out for her with his free one. 

She takes it without a second thought. 

“Have you ever heard about the Ahamkara?” Cayde asks and for a moment it feels as if everything comes to a standstill. 

“Aham... kara?” she frowns, tastes the word. Everything about it screams ‘archaic’, ‘forbidden’, ‘_dangerous'. _And despite all of that it sends shivers down her spine. Meera rolls her shoulders again, tensing for a moment when her aching flesh protests. “You mean the Wish-Dragons from the Great Hunt?” 

“Yeah,” Cayde says and nods. He gestures for Sundance and the Ghost flies up, her eye flashing a bright, vibrant blue before a hologram of a serpent-like creature is shown between them. At the head of the felled dragon stands the familiar form of Shaxx. 

“Cayde, if this is real...” she breaks away from his hold and moves backwards to lean against his window sill, shell-shocked. 

“It is. I know it is.” 

“But the Great Hunt brought down every single Ahamkara that inhabited Sol.” 

“Then explain how our wishes for a second chance just so happened to come into fruition.” 

“I don’t—look, Cayde, this is, at best, ludicrous and at worst insane. Do you even hear what you’re saying?” 

He raises a brow-plate, scowling. “According to you, insanity.” 

“That’s _not _what I’m saying.” 

“It’s what I’m hearin’.” 

Now it’s Meera’s turn to scowl. 

“The Ahamkara were made extinct for very good reason,” he continues. “They were deemed too dangerous, too mysterious. And for good reason.” 

“So how did one survive?” 

“Not a damn clue,” Cayde falls silent for a moment. “Except one...” 

“What do you mean?” 

“The Prison of Elders,” he starts. “That was when we made first contact, it_ has _to be.” 

“Because of the loop?” 

“Exactly. And who owns that damn Prison.” 

“The Awo—” Meera falls silent as her eyes widen. 

_ By the __Traveler_... 

“Traveler preserve us,” she whispers, staring blindly out into nothing. “There’s an Ahamkara in the Prison of Elders.” 

If her voice turns hysteric near the end, neither makes note of it. 

“No, it’s not possible. If there had been an Ahamkara all this time, no way in Hell that Guardians world be allowed anywhere near it. The Consensus, not to mention the Queen, would never have allowed it.” 

“And if the Queen knew?” 

Cayde lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “What, you think that she _didn’t _ ? Lemme tell ya one thing here, Mee... Queen Sov ain’t one to _not _have a finger in every single pie that she can get her dainty, blue hands on.” 

“What if it worked with someone?” 

“What, this mystery Ahamkara?” 

Meera nods fervently and lets go of the window sill behind her with shaking hands. 

“I read about it, back when you grounded my Fireteam post Crota and I had nothing to do. I read about the deals that they made with Guardians back in the day, how they whispered to them.” 

The noise that Cayde makes has her tense up, instinctively. 

“I heard ‘em. The whispers, I mean,” he says and immediately Meera understands. 

“This last time, you mean?” 

He nods, slowly and Meera steps back to him, hushes him when a whine presses its way out by kissing him soundly. 

“You promised to come back, and you did,” he sounds as hysterical as Meera felt moments ago. “In some sort of fucked up way, you _did _come back. It never broke its promise to me, did it?” 

“But you hearing the whispers doesn’t make it clear how it made contact with us back in the Prison, if that is even when it began.” 

“It was the only place where we both were located at the same time. And it wouldn’t have made sense if we were plucked from different places in our timesteams.” 

“_Eurgh_, you’re starting to sound like Osiris,” Meera mutters and her nose scrunches up. “Stop it.” 

Cayde guffaws rather suddenly at that. It’s loud and it’s vibrant and for a moment it makes Meera forget the absolute shithole of a reality that the two of them is stuck in. 

“Never chance, Meera,” he sighs against her lips and beckons her closer to him. She obliges without complaint and settles into his arms. “Never change.” 

“I don’t plan on it,” she promises with a kiss of her own against _ his _ lips. 

“My Meera,” he sighs, drawing back only for a moment to look into her eyes, reverently. “My Light.” 

“As you are mine.” 

* * *

Once more, the cycle begins anew. 

Meera throws herself into her work as a Guardian, even more so than before in that wonderful instance where she found Cayde the first time around. Her Ghost is concerned from the get go and never loses that trait even after Cayde and her tell him everything. 

Privately, she knows that he never really will let that concern go, not after Cayde’s admittance to murdering his own Ghost—be it through otherworldly deceit or not. 

But he doesn’t turn them in to the Consensus, or the remaining Vanguard for that matter, and for that he has her eternal gratitude. 

* * *

Meeting the Exo Stranger is just as daunting and vexing now as it was the very first time that Meera ever spoke to her. 

There is nothing new about the meeting, she still speaks in riddles and still has no time to explain why she doesn’t have time to explain. But afterwards... 

The Exo motions for Meera after telling her Fireteam what to do and where to go, beckoning her closer. 

“Mee?” Tora asks behind her, a question going unspoken between them, but Meera gets it all the same. 

She waves off the Warlock’s concern and reluctantly does as she is told, stepping closer. In the background she hears Zalli drag Tora far enough away to be out of immediate earshot. 

The gun resting at her hip, barrel still smoking, feels heavy as she fingers its hilt. “What is it?” 

“You’re like me,” the Stranger says, sounding confused as she walks around her in a circle. “You’re out of your own time.” 

“Out of my ow—wait, _like you_?!” 

“One of the things that I cannot explain, at least not yet.” 

“Will you ever?” 

“Maybe. It depends.” 

“On _what_?” 

“On what the future will bring.” 

Meera nods slowly, for a moment staring intently at the mossy, overgrown concrete that makes out the floor. “And if the opportunity never comes?” 

“In that case,” the Stranger almost looks as if she is enjoying herself. “I hope that you find whatever it is that you seek out here. And know this, there is always a choice.” 

She steps closer to the Exo, frowning. “What do you mean, ‘a choice’?” 

The Exo Stranger laughs, a whirring, mechanical sound, as she steps backwards—away from Meera. “If you don’t know what I mean by that yet, you still have a lot to learn.” 

“No, wait!” 

Meera reaches out, ready to wrangle her hand in the other woman’s cloak and _keep _her here until she damn well answers whatever questions Meera still have left in her mind, but the Stranger gives a stiff, mocking salute before she disappears in a flickering burst of light, leaving Meera standing alone in the overgrown chamber. 

“Damn it!” 

* * *

“What if Cayde is wrong?” her Ghost asks later that same night. 

For now, it’s just the two of them out here, sitting by themselves in their camp for the night. There is a volcano in the distance spewing who-knows-what into the atmosphere and across the campfire she can see, as well as hear, Zalli and Tora snore like a pack of rabid animals. 

They’ve met with the Exo Stranger, been given their next step in the quest for finding the Black Garden after slaughtering a horde of Vex and despite all of the chaos and topsy-turvy emotions... 

It’s... it’s peaceful. 

“He can’t be,” Meera shakes her head and rubs at one of his fins with a gloved hand. “We can’t afford it. Not again.” 

“You might have to.” 

Her eyes grow dark, flinty. “We _won’t_.” 

“What about the Prince?” her Ghost asks, quietly. “If the Stranger is right, you’ll have to go and talk to the Awoken if you want to find the Black Garden. So... if you see Uldren Sov again, after what happened back in your original timeline... what will you do?” 

“I won’t go in there with them,” she murmurs back and lets her gaze fall away from the volcano in the distance. “I don’t think that I could handle it, to be honest. It’s one thing to speak with the Queen, she wasn’t even involved in Cayde’s death. But Uldren...” 

Her hands forms a fist in her lap and she presses her lips together in displeasure. 

No, it is most definitely for the best if she stays with the ship while her Fireteam goes to talk with the Awoken sovereign and her darling brother on the morrow. Seeing him would be playing with fire that they cannot afford to fumble around with, at least not now with the Darkness encroaching upon them and their enemies left, right and center preparing for war against Humanity. 

“We’ll see when we get there,” her Ghost closes off the subject as tactfully as he can. “For now, let’s look through today’s data.” 

“Are there any messages from Cayde?” she asks. 

“Two text messages and a missed video call,” her Ghost replies frostily. 

“Wha—why didn’t you say anything?!” she hisses at him, lowering her volume when Tora lets out a loud snort and turns around in his sleep. There are still a few hours to go before it’s his turn to take the watch. 

“You were kind of busy not getting full of bullet holes to notice that your boyfriend tried calling you,” the little shit has the nerve to sass her. “And afterwards you weren’t exactly in the most welcoming of moods.” 

Meera sniffs indignantly as she fishes out her handheld and opens up one of the notifications on it. Just as her Ghost says, it shows two text messages as well as a missed call, and she immediately presses on it while lowering the volume output. 

Cayde’s picture pops up on the screen after a few seconds as the message begins playing. 

_ “Hey there, honeybunch, so how’re things on over there on Venus? Y’know, you haven’t really responded to any of my messages that I sent, uh, ‘round ten minutes ago? Ish? I mean, not that, uh, you’re not allowed to _not _respond, but I _am _y__our direct superior so it’s kind of a not-too-great signal to send, yeah? Anyway, call me when you get the chance, beautiful,__‘cause __I miss you. Catch __ya __later.” _

He sounds... flippant and carefree and so very much like _Cayde _that she just about starts crying her eyes out. Carefully, her fingertips ghost over the screen of her handheld as she smiles. 

“He’s... nice,” Ghost admits after a few seconds of silence. He groans and prepares to elaborate when Meera sends him a raised eyebrow. “I mean, his attempts at flirting are absolutely horrible, but he’s nice to you.” 

“Yeah, he is,” Meera agrees somberly. “Don’t know what I did to actually deserve him.” 

“More like, how he actually deserves _you_.” 

“You might just very well be the slightest bit biased in your assessment there, Little Light,” she coos and quickly kisses one of his rotating fins. He tries to dodge with a grumble, unconvincingly acting miffed. “_Just_ a bit.” 

“Am not!” the Ghost sounds so utterly betrayed that it takes everything in Meera not to laugh out loud. 

They’re not completely alright, despite the many claims from both herself and Cayde that they most definitely are, but they’ll get there. 

Slowly, but surely, they’ll get there. 

* * *

The hangar in the Awoken Palace is vast and echoing despite the constant comings and goings by the Corsairs, Fallen and whatever else keeps moving in and out of there. 

Meera hates it. 

The smell of burnt ship fuel, dust and cloying, sickenly sweet incense is thick in her nostrils, even through her mask and its connected air filtration unit, and Meera stifles a sneeze when it begins prickling in her nose. 

Zalli and Tora has not been gone for long and are probably by now introduced to the smarmy bastard that is Uldren Sov, but Meera refuses to dwell on it for long. 

She leans against the hull of their ship instead and watches the Awoken men and women walk past her every now and then, notices how a pair of guards never really takes their eyes off of her. For the longest time she has been dreading coming back here to the Awoken Reef, be it accompanied with her Fireteam or not, but now that she actually _i__s _back here it is all rather... underwhelming. 

It feels like waiting for the storm to roll over and drown her. She is tense, ready to go.

Petra has yet to make an appearance, and the chances of Meera even seeing the Queen’s Wrath at this point in time are slim to none. 

Her last memories of Petra are of the woman on her knees beside her, cradling Cayde’s deadweighted head. There had been tears in her remaining eye, Meera remembers that much. Tears and denial had been all that kept Petra in one piece that day, but this time it won’t be like this, not again. _ Never _ again. 

Meera will see to that, even if it’s the last damn thing that she does. 

A loud clatter to the right of her draws her half-assed attention away from the guards staring at her and shows her two companions finally returning from their audience with Mara. 

Both Awoken men appear rather perplexed with what they’ve just experienced, Zalli a bit more so than Tora, but neither look worse for wear and that is all that matters to her. 

“You alright? Did everything go well in there?” Meera calls out and steps away from their ship. 

Zalli raises his hand in greeting and gives her a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Just peachy, both of us. And more than ready to head home. I can see now why you wanted to stay out here.” 

“Rough meeting with Her Majesty?” 

Zalli grumbles something that has Tora snickering, but it’s too low for Meera to catch it. She has a pretty good idea of what he’s pissy about, though. 

“So now what?” she asks and crosses her arms. The ship’s doors open up behind her and she leads her friends inside. 

“_Now _we find a Vex Gate Lord,” Tora gushes with the glee that only a Warlock adrenaline-junkie can contain. “And then we get to rip its eye out!” 

Meera sighs out loud. 

This is going to be a long trip back. 

* * *

They get the Gate Lord’s Eye and they go to Mars and they unlock the way into the Black Garden. 

They win against the Darkness trapped and growing inside of it, too. 

And they celebrate like nothing else when they’re finally home. 

* * *

Cayde presses her against the wall in their shared space and hungrily takes his fill of her lips. His hands run up and down her sides, tangles in her hair, maps what skin is bare to him as he grinds his crotch against her and hums in delight. 

Meera readily reciprocates. 

In their hurried fumble to get from the hallway to the bedroom they knock over a potted plant and nearly trip over a pair of boots lying discarded on the floor, but make it in there they do. 

He never stops touching her. 

Sighing in pleasure when Cayde bends over her and decorates every inch of her skin in wonderful markings of his mouth-plates, Meera can’t help but let her own hands dance across his body. She lets the tips of her fingers dip into the slim crevasses between synth-mesh skin and protective alloys that make out his shoulders and chest, and moans when his fingers caress her rear as his lips leaves a trail of bright red hickeys along her neck- and jawline. 

His hand slips between them and he wastes little time in slipping his fingers in between her legs. She is wet enough that there is little to no friction when he breaches her entrance, and Meera lets out a sigh at the sensation. 

“Missed ya,” Cayde breathes against her neck and leaves a heady, _ wet _ kiss against her jawbone. “Missed _th__is_.” 

“Inside me,” she groans and turns her head so that her lips press against his. Her breath is fogging up the plates when she lets out a pleasure-addled chuckle. There is a brief moment where her teeth clack against his mouth, her impatience winning out. “_Now_, Cayde.” 

“Fuck’s sake, ‘M _gettin'_ there.” 

“Well, get there _faster_!” she hisses and her hips buck. The movement is abrupt enough for Cayde to jerk ever so slightly when one of his fingers suddenly is buried inside of her and the rest of them pressing against her wet sex. 

Letting out a hiss of his own, Cayde leans back to look at her. Meera smiles when she catches his eyes and raises a hand to caress his cheek. 

“You’re back here,” he mumbles, almost drunkenly. “With _me_.” 

“With you,” she nods and her forehead presses against his. “Always with you.” 

“Missed you somethin’ fierce, lemme tell ya,” Cayde chuckles and wiggles his finger inside of her, causing Meera to tense for a moment and have to cling to his shoulders before he continues. “Missed how you felt... how you tasted... how you _sounded_.” 

She clings to him with every word that he speaks, mumbles incoherently as he builds her orgasm higher and higher. Every single muscle in her cunt clenches down, _hard_, and Meera lets out a wail. She shudders when another of Cayde’s fingers press inside of her, stretching her so nicely. By this point her thighs are shaking even as they’re lying down in their bed, and Meera can’t help the occasional gasp for breath whenever Cayde’s clever fingers press both inside and outside. She clenches around him periodically whenever an orgasm washes over her, but even so he keeps going until the pleasure is bordering pain instead. 

Meera whines and seizes up when yet another one washes over her. The sounds that she is making would be mortifying, _should be_, but all that she can focus on is the two of them in their bedroom. 

The sound of fireworks goes off outside and the smell of gunpowder soon invades the air of the housing unit, but neither stop for a moment to look at the spectacle outside. 

And Cayde brings her to completion once more. 

* * *

The party down in the barracks across the Tower has yet to start winding down even as the sun begins to warm the horizon in the east. 

Meera and Cayde lie together in their bed with the sweat-soaked sheets tangled around their bodies, still connected from their earlier activities. 

His hand is still buried between her thighs, sticky and warm, but whenever he has attempted to remove it, she clenches her muscles around the appendage, keeping it trapped. 

“There’s... somethin’ I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout. While you’ve been gone, I mean,” Cayde rumbles. His free hand tangles in her hair and rubs against her scalp in random patterns. “Sov wasn’t himself, back there in the Prison, I mean.” 

Meera opens one eye to glare up at him. She shifts in his arms to face him properly, grimacing when the movement causes his hand to slip out from between her legs. “Really? We’re enjoying a good post-sex cuddle and you want to talk about _Sov_?” 

“Since when did you care about _timing_?” 

“Since when did you fantasize about Awoken princes in the bedroom?” 

“Oh, shove off,” Cayde snorts. Meera joins him a moment later in snickers and giggles. Cayde’s now-freed hand briefly squeezes her ass before he twists the two of them around. “I’m serious, though.” 

“Well, in that case,” Meera leans down from her place above him and briefly kisses the tip of his nasal plate. “Do share your infinite wisdom with this mere mortal soul.” 

At this Cayde grows... uncharacteristically quiet. Meera frowns. 

“Cayde?” 

“Got to thinkin’, y’know? ‘Bout the Prison and what happened in there,” he sighs. His hands never stop caressing her skin, even as Meera grows stiff. 

“What are you talkin—” 

“Uldren, he... he wasn’t _right_. At least, he didn’t act like he did when I helped bring ‘im in.” 

“Wait, you _helped_ bring Uldren to the Prison of Elders?” 

Cayde nods. “Those Barons, too, y’know. They’re called ‘Scorned’.” 

Meera lets out a snort. “Wow, original.” 

“Those fuckers were a pain in the ass to get behind bars, y’know. Took me cashin' in on nearly all my favors on the opposite side of Mars to make it happen, too. Assholes.” 

“Back on track here, Cayde,” Meera urges. “What’s this about Uldren not, well, ‘being right’?” 

“Well, he... he was acting fuckin’ strange in there. Practically couldn’t stop gloating after they got ‘Dance, and that I can at least understand from a no-gooder's point of view, but... eurgh, but the way he _talked_, Mee. It was like there was somethin’ else there with him, something that he was tryin’ to impress.” 

“But it was just the two of you?” 

“Yeah, jus’ the two of us in there. Well, until you got there.” 

“So what? Uldren comes into contact with an Ahamkara, gets incarcerated, goes mad and then orchestrates a prison break before shooting you?” Meera stares at him. “Do you realize how _mad _you sound right now?” 

“‘S better than nothin’.” 

“True. The ramifications of what that could mean would be beyond disastrous, though.” 

“When _aren't _our lives beyond disastrous?” 

“Well,” Meera looks up at the ceiling as she ponders for a moment. “There was that period between the SIVA Crisis and the Red Legion’s invasion. That was pretty uneventful.” 

“Don’t jinx it, dummy,” Cayde grumbles before he gets a firmer grip on her body. “Now, get back down here and kiss me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts are always appreciated


	7. Cayde IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 25/6-20: fixed some weird spacing happening between italics and normal letters

The Moon is as bare and desolate as always, its feeble atmosphere just thick enough to carry the screams of Fallen and Hive to Cayde’s ears. Through the feed he watches as the Fireteam edges closer to the Hellmouth, to Crota’s lair, and descends down into the Pit, just as Eriana-3 and her own Fireteam did all those decades ago. 

A Warlock and Titan both appear in the picture, giving the carrier of the feed a thumbs up before they run ahead to scout the area presumably. Another Hunter can be seen out of the corner of the screen, tense and alert as they look around. 

_ Smart lad _ , Cayde thinks and crosses his arms. _Can never be too careful up there _

An easy thought to entertain but much more difficult in reality. It is almost scary with how easy it is to forget the reality of danger when you’re stuck in the Tower day in and day out. 

“_Prepare to engage_,” he hears the leader of the Fireteam speak over the shared comm devices. “_T__raveler light your paths, Guardians_.” 

_ Pssh_, the Light is going to be the least of their worries down there in that hellhole, of that Cayde is pretty fuckin’ sure. 

A brief glance back out through the Hall of Guardians reveals Eris Morn to him, hunched over her glowing orb and muttering softly. More than one Guardian is walking in a wide berth around her, but she doesn’t seem to notice whatsoever. 

In his ear he hears Meera crack a joke about the architecture. There’s a brief scattering of nervous laughter crackling over the comms before everything goes silent once more. 

“Hey Eris!” Cayde calls from the Vanguard’s table. He beckons her closer when the Hunter looks up from whatever creepy voodoo shit it is that she’s busy doing to that ball of hers. She ain’t hiding out there, not today. “The Raid on Crota, it’s startin’. Come have a look, yeah?” 

Slowly, reminding him of a cautious predator stalking its prey through the undergrowth, Eris edges closer to the Vanguard table and to where the screens and handhelds are broadcasting and processing the data that is being transferred from the Guardians currently en route to face the Hive Prince. 

When she moves to stand between Ikora and Zavala, Cayde stops her with a sharp wave. She hesitates for a moment before moving over to stand between him and Ikora instead. 

“You are not usually so inclusive, Hunter Vanguard,” Eris’ head cocks to the side as she observes him. Her three eyes are glowing in that ominous, sickly green color of hers that always makes it feel like he is breaking out in hives. Cayde refuses to let her see him shudder. “What has changed your mind?” 

“Thought that outta anyone gathered here, you most of anyone deserve some damn closure. We Hunters look out fer each other, Eris, and you’re no exception to that, Ghost or no Ghost,” Cayde says quietly, low enough for only her to hear, and puts a hand on her shoulder. She tenses automatically at his touch, but does not draw away from him. “Now, I want you to take command of that comm station and help them finish what you and Eriana started. Help them make Crota pay for everything he’s done to the City, and to you.” 

He moves his hand and only just steps away when her stone-free hand shoots out and stops him in his tracks. Her fingers feel cold as ice, even through his thick leathers. 

“Cayde-6...” Eris almost looks as if she is hesitating for a moment before her quite frankly unnerving gaze catches Cayde’s. “Thank you.” 

“Anytime,” he nods and retracts his arm. 

She allows it. 

* * *

“_W-we did it,_” one of the Guardians say when the dust settles and the last stragglers are killed off. “_H-holy shit, we actually _did it!” 

A joyous wave of whoops sweeps through the Tower. 

Cayde supports his shaking body against the table and bends his head down, whispers prayers to the Light under his breath. 

Eris’ hand rests on his shoulder, squeezing. 

* * *

From there on, it feels as if the future repeats the past. And, in some strange manner, it is. 

Meera barely has a chance to rest following the defeat of Crota before the Reef and Petra comes calling, citing a debt that needs repaid by the Guardians who were granted aid to end the danger of the Black Garden. 

Cayde is stubborn, nearly refuses to let her leave him behind here on Earth. 

“The last time you went farther than Mars, you—” 

“I went with Zalli and Tora into the Reef for an audience with the Queen and came back alive, Cayde,” Meera placates him, cupping his cheek. “Everything will be fine.” 

“I don’t want you near those Fallen. It’s not—” 

“No, it’s not safe,” she interrupts him. “I _know _ . Trust me, Cayde, I know it isn’t. But I have also been around long enough to recognize when or if a mission is going straight south. The Awoken Queen demands repayment for her aid and we owe it—_I _owe it.” 

“So does your Warlock and Titan. Why can’t they just go alone?” Cayde doesn’t care that he sounds like a petulant child. 

“They _are _going. But we’d be showing insincerity if we don’t show up full force.” 

To this Cayde lets out a rude noise before he steps forward and draws her into a firm embrace. “Fuck the Awoken, fuck everything_. _Quite frankly I couldn’t give less of a fuck about them. Just... just stay here, Mee—_with me _.” 

“I can’t. You know I can’t.” 

“The Universe won’t collapse if you sit out one damn thing, for once in your life,” he argues. His hold around her tightens. “Please.” 

Meera shifts in his arms and draws back as far as he allows her. “You know I can’t, Cayde. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” 

Her lips are thin from displeasure. Cayde is beyond caring. He knows what he wants and what he wants is for her to stay _here _with _him_, damnit. 

“I’m not Andal Brask,” she then says and Cayde stiffens. 

It’s been years but it feels like centuries—_millennia_, his mind whispers but Cayde stubbornly ignores it—since Andal died, and for Cayde it still hurts as if it was only yesterday. 

“Damn right you’re not,” he bleats, scrambling for a snappy comeback. “For one thing, he could actually pull off a moustache which you sure as shit can’t.” 

Meera’s fist slams into his ribs. 

“_Ow_!” 

“Stop fucking around, Cayde!” she finally snaps at him and wrestles out of his hold. “Just this one time, could you at the very least _try _to take the situation serious?” 

“I will as soon as you stop throwing yourself into one dangerous situation after the other,” he snipes, scowling. A few fingers tangle in her hair. “I only want you... safe.” 

“Trust me to be able to keep myself safe,” Meera counters. She leans briefly against the fingers. “The whole world is not out to get us, Cayde.” 

“Is this where I remind you of the Ahamkara that’s apparently a problem?” he mumbles. Cayde tries to reel her into another embrace. “Or, how about the fact that we can’t seem to get a certain Hive god killed off in the right way.” 

Meera’s eyes glitter dangerously. “This time it’ll be different. This time I won’t fail.” 

“Why?” Cayde’s eyebrows raise. “What will you do?” 

At this she laughs, low and sinister. 

“I’m going to bring along a Titan.” 

* * *

Skolas goes down, just like last time. 

Apparently, it pays to have a Striker with you out there in the Galaxy—who’d have known? 

But, Meera returns with her Fireteam—with Zalli and Tora—victorious and high on the lingering thrill of battle. The three of them are barely able to stay separated when they return back to the Tower, and Cayde throws _that _particular blame on the fact that whatever it was that happened inside the Prison of Elders strengthened their bonds with each other. 

He doesn’t know what happened in there. The comms went down and neither Meera, her Titan or her Warlock says_ anything _about the subject. 

To be honest, she is uncharacteristically quiet following that last battle. 

Weeks pass. 

They’re still alive, still safe. 

_ Still whole_. 

And so it is, after vibrant celebrations once more, that the Vanguard receives a call across all channels on a cold September morning, announcing the defeat of the Awoken fleet against whatever just entered the System of Sol. 

* * *

The news has only just been broken to Meera and her Fireteam when Cayde subtly nods to Zalli and Tora, signaling for them to follow him. 

They do. 

He leads them into his scarcely-used office after the meeting and sweeps a hand over the surface of his desk to make room for himself as he waits for the two Awoken men to arrive. 

When they do it is with apprehension in their eyes and caution in their steps. 

“You wanted to see us, Hunter Vanguard?” the Titan asks. His ever-vigilant orange eyes and slicked dark hair remind Cayde too much of Uldren Sov to be completely at ease, even with the Warlock present as well. “Is something wrong?” 

“You’re headin’ out for Phobos,” Cayde says tersely. His arms cross as he looks from Titan to Warlock. “It’s uncharted territory out there.” 

“We know,” Tora nods. He’s fidgeting something fierce in here, keeps on picking at his Warlock Bond. “Is that why you called us in here? You got a map of the moon?” 

Cayde laughs, surprised for a moment. “Nah, I’ve been plenty of places over the years, kid, but Cabal-territory ain’t really one of ‘em. Too trigger happy, them Cabal.” 

“Then why are we here, Sir?” Zalli frowns. 

Cayde leans back against his desk and sighs. One hand slips down to yank out one of his knives from his belt and he begins fiddling with it, twirling it around in senseless shapes. “You’re here because... because I need someone to watch over Quill.” 

“What’s wrong with Meera?” Zalli straightens up immediately. “Has she done something?” 

“No, no, no, not at all,” Cayde shakes his head. “I just... I have a bad feeling ‘bout that shit out there. Whatever crushed the Awoken fleet is still out there around Saturn, and who’s to say that whatever that is also got to Phobos? Jus—keep an eye on her, yeah? Keep her safe.” 

“You think something bad will happen to Mee out there?” 

“I think that she might let the glory go to her head. It’s happened to Guardians before when they venture out where no one’s been before, and I ain’t lettin’ her be one of ‘em,” Cayde grits out. “Can you promise me this? That you’ll get her back home?” 

There’s a moment where Cayde’s and Zalli’s eyes meet. The Titan holds the Vanguard’s eyes long enough for understanding to pass between them, wordlessly. They both want the Fireteam to come home, safe and sound. They both want _her _to come home, safe and sound. 

“You have my word, Hunter Vanguard,” Zalli vows and reaches out with his hand, fingers stretched out towards Cayde. 

Cayde looks at Zalli, looks down at his outstretched hand, and he sheathes the knife. Then, his hand reaches forward. His fingers wrap around the Titan’s lower arm and his grip tightens. He gives as good as he gets. 

“She is your charge, then.” Cayde doesn’t blink for a moment, _never_ breaks contact. 

And Zalli meets him, for every beat. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

* * *

It takes everything in Cayde to keep himself from storming after Meera and her Fireteam, haul her ass back to their apartment and keep her there until the Traveler has left Humanity behind for good, maybe until Earth is nothing but a faded husk in a backwater galaxy. 

He watches quietly as their ships take off from the hangar, heading for Martian space. Behind him he can hear Amanda fiddle around with one of her numerous projects. 

“You alright there, cowboy?” 

He starts when her hand lands on his shoulder. Slowly, as if he can’t quite convince himself, Cayde nods. 

“Yeah, I’m jus—got a bad feeling ‘bout this, that’s all.” 

“I would, too,” Amanda nods and gives him a smile. Cayde can’t find it in himself to return it. “After all the shit that’s been happening ‘round Earth, yeah? I’d be a paranoid bastard if I were in yer shoes, Cayde.” 

“My shoes are too big, dimwit,” Cayde snorts and wraps an arm around Amanda, drawing her into a tight hug. “But thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it, Cayde,” Amanda chuckles and finds his hand, squeezes it. 

* * *

The kids arrive on Phobos. 

Cayde follows along from Tower Command, even if he’s feeling as tight as a newly screwed-on bolt. 

If he’s acting too jittery to be comfortable, at least Zavala and Ikora are courteous enough to not mention it outright. He has a feeling, however, that Zavala asking him to help sort out the interference coming from the Cabal base is a hint to calm the hell down before the Titan does it for him. 

So he calms the hell down. Or, he tries to. 

Everything kind of goes to shit everywhere once Eris starts freaking out which causes Zavala to freak out which causes _Cayde_ to freak out which causes Ikora to frown in confusion. 

The point is, _everybody _freaks. 

“Guardians, get out of there! This mission is no longe—” Zavala is cut off by a vicious roar loud enough to ring across the comm. The Titan takes a step back in shock, eyes wide and full of an emotion that Cayde isn’t close enough to properly decipher. 

Everything in Tower Command is quiet. The only thing audible is the several bouts of slightly to quite panicked breaths from all around the room. Cayde grabs onto the table as dread blooms inside his chest. His breaths come out in short, static-y huffs as his hands keep opening and closing again and again and again. 

Eris is not making anything easier across the table by screeching about the end times and Taken and Hive and Oryx. 

_ Fucking Oryx_. 

He forces his feet to move across the floor, even as it feels like walking through molasses, wrestles the comm out of Eris’ steeled grasp and puts the microphone against his mouth. 

“Shornell, you know your mission. Haul ass, _pronto_.” 

“_Understood, Sir_,” is the interference-laced reply that Cayde receives a few moments afterwards. “_Standby for future report of the situation_.” 

“See to it,” Cayde nods and mutes the connection. 

Command is dead quiet. 

Ikora has moved over to Eris and is slowly helping the poor woman actually sit down and breathe from what it looks like, while Zavala... 

Zavala is looking more or less like a lost, little child. 

“Someone get off their ass and send a message to the hangars! Tell them to prepare for incoming ship under duress!” Cayde calls out, sharply. A moment passes before he adds, “And keep a team of medics on hand from the moment that Fireteam is in friendly airspace!” 

Like an anthill, the Vanguard room explodes into action as technicians weave in and out between each other, all of them stumbling over each other to fulfill their new orders. And like a beleaguered father, Cayde watches all of them with a drawn, tense expression on his face. 

It’s as if his body is too small in that moment. As if there is nothing left inside of him but his Light, flickering bright and orange, a Golden Gun who blazes across the skies and leaves a path of destruction behind wherever he goes. 

He needs to get out of here. As in _yesterday_. 

“I’ll be back,” he grunts to Ikora and paves a way through the chaos barely restricted to their workspace. 

Like Hell he’ll stay placid this time! 

* * *

The Queen of Hearts might not have flown in a good, long while, but she sure as Hell still mews like a cat that just got into the cream. 

Cayde floors it from the moment that he’s inside the cockpit. 

To Hell with the fact that Zavala has signoff on all launches and to Hell with the fact that he is breaking who even _knows _how many protocols. 

He leans back in the pilot’s seat and maneuvers the ship through the atmosphere with ease, thinking back. 

* * *

_ Meera sits on the edge of the bed. Her hair is down, free of its usual braid, and she smiles somberly as she leans against his side. _ _ Cayde _ _ adores her like this, when everything is soft and completely without any sharp edges and she is dressed in his leftover clothing. _

_ “He couldn’t touch me,” she whispers. The two of them watch as the raindrops collide against the windows. “Oryx, I mean.” _

_ “ _ _ Whaddya _ _ mean, he couldn’t touch you?” _

_ “That he couldn’t touch me, get into physical contact with me. Something... something blocked him out, I guess.” _

_ “Got any leads?” _

_ She falls quiet. After a moment she stands up from the bed even as she keeps a hand tethered onto his shoulder. _

_ Neither mention how her fingers dig into the metal. _

_ “My best guess? That Ahamkara that might very well be loose out there somewhere. I think it... it _did _something to us.” _

_ “To us?” _

* * *

He remembers being... confused. Confused and scared and just a little bit wary, because wary is good and wary is going to keep you alive. 

But never mind that now, because Cayde wants to see them—_her _—alive and well. 

He’ll meet them before they reach Earth. 

That’s the plan, at the very least. 

Opening the comm channels and wordlessly directing Sundance to contact the Meera’s Fireteam’s ship feels like it’s a far grander task than it out to be. 

“City Hawk-723, this is Hunter Vanguard, Cayde-6 speaking. Do you copy?” 

There’s silence. 

For so, so long there is silence. 

Cayde flies through the dark space, course set directly towards Phobos, and he clenches his hands around the steering controls. An alarm beeps in his head about the external pressure in his hands being dangerously close to stretching or damaging his outer shell. 

But then. 

Suddenly there is a burst of screeching static across his channel and Cayde finds himself blasted with happy, adrenaline-pumped cheers from three elated, _ alive _, Guardians. 

“_Cayde!__” _ she screams into his ear. His audio receptors whine back at him and he winces. “_Cayde__, we’re alive! W-we're... oh fuck, _we’re alive_!” _

_ “Traveler’s crack, Mee, calm your damn tits already!” _ a raspy voice cuts through and it is so sudden that Cayde can’t help but let out a wheezy laugh. “_You’d think we’d just signed our own death certificates and escaped in the nick of time_.” 

Cayde goes quiet after that. He swallows, closes his eyes and says a prayer to the Traveler before he begins cancelling the route he’s embarked on for now. 

“Sendin’ coordinates, kids. Meet me back planetside for a debrief. Private, y’hear?” 

“_What about the Commander?” _

_ Eurgh_, Cayde sighs internally. Fucking Titans and their sense of duty. 

“Lemme handle Big Blue for a sec, alright? Now get your asses back home. Vanguard over and out.” 

He’s quiet for the rest of the trip back to Earth. 

* * *

Old Italy is beautiful in autumn. 

The cottage he’s spent the past hundred lifetimes trying to fix is still standing where he left it last, with a single window still broken and a half-finished landing spot for ships still needing some attention and care. 

Cayde sits on the hull of his ship as he waits for Meera and her Fireteam to land, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the setting sun hanging low on the horizon. Everything is painted in a brilliant orange hue. He adores it. 

He looks up immediately when he hears the noise of engines above him, and grins big and wide when he sees the ship above him slowly lower itself down. 

From the moment that the other ship opens its doors, Meera wastes little time in tearing off her helmet and throw it somewhere behind her as she strides directly towards Cayde. 

In all honesty he’s all for this as he meets her halfway across the stretch of land between them and immediately goes for her lips. 

Her arms wrap around him and his around her as their lips lock in a blissful, perfect moment—as if frozen in time. 

There are noises behind Meera, no doubt from her Fireteam, he guesses, from the strangled wheezes that are coming from somewhere behind the two of them. 

“Uhhh... s-should we jus—?” 

“Right, nothin’ to see here, eh, Zalli?” 

The Warlock sounds like he’s busy having a mental breakdown as Cayde spots him dragging away the Titan out of the corner of his eye. 

“Fuck,” he rasps and rests his forehead against hers, mindful of his (beautiful, beautiful) horn not banging against her. “I thought you were gone.” 

“Not gone,” she laughs. Her voice is teetering on hysteric. “Never gone. Not from you.” 

He presses another kiss against her lips, hungry and ecstatic. A hand gets tangled in her hair, loosens the braid keeping it from flying everywhere, while the other sneaks downward to fist in her cloak. 

“We did it, Mee,” he grins. He can’t help it, feeling the elation spread out across all of his systems. “We fucking _did it_!” 

He lifts her into the air and swirls her around, laughs loud and carefree until she joins him. 

They did it. 

She survived Oryx. 

Now all that’s left is beat him down. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated :)


	8. Meera IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit 18/7-20: more weird distance between italics has been fixed

Old Italy’s countryside is beautiful this time of year. 

The old buildings that once held the city of Santa Maria de Leuca can be seen in the distance, overgrown and largely reclaimed by nature. They’re derelict, but beautiful. 

At least, Meera thinks so. 

She can see why this place caught Cayde’s attention back when he was still free to do as he pleased, before the Vanguard. There’s a sense of... freedom. Looking over the rolling hills, topped with small clusters of trees and the occasional ruined house, there is a lovely, isolated sort of charm here that Meera most definitely can see Cayde getting enamored by. 

And, speaking of enamored... 

“This is awkward on, y’know,_ so _many levels. You do realize that, right?” 

Tora looks as if he’d rather be anywhere else but here. The setting sun has now transitioned into dusk proper, and the lighting causes his Awoken colors to stand out rather eerily. His eyes glowing like a cat’s definitely is. 

In the background, Cayde is looking their ships over, just to make sure that everything will still be relatively intact after that stunt of theirs on Phobos. 

Meera never takes her eyes off the horizon. She can just barely see the waterline out there in the distance, flickering past the tree line. “You weren’t supposed to know.” 

“Bit hard to avoid when you’re locking lips from the moment that you’re within reach of each other, yeah?” 

“I guess,” Meera shrugs and smiles. She can’t seem to stop doing that. 

“Do you even know how many regulations that you’re breaking by doing this?” 

Both the Hunter and Warlock looks towards their Titan. Meera’s brows meet in a frown. 

“I’m not an idiot, Zalli. Sometimes things happen.” 

“And sometimes you ought to know when to kill your darlings. Meera, this is—I hope you realize that there’s a damn reason why relationships between subordinates and their overseers are frowned upon!” Zalli’s eyes gleam in the twilight. His face is twisted in an unholy mixture of rage and concern. “This... whatever_ this _is, it’s not worth getting disgraced within the Guardian ranks.” 

Meera’s eyes grow flinty. “I think I’ll be the judge of that, thank you.” 

“C’mon, guys, let’s not fight,” Tora complains. “For fuck’s sake, we just escaped a fucking death trap.” 

“All the more reason to clear the air before we return, don’t you think?” Zalli levels both of them with a warning glare. He is not going to let this go. “Make sure that we all agree on what happened up there on Phobos.” 

“There’s nothing more to it than what happened,” Meera says. “We came, we battled those creatures that had taken over the base and apparently got introduced to one of the biggest fish out there in the Universe.” 

“Don’t forget the two of us witnessing you locking lips with your Vanguard,” Tora comments dryly. 

Zalli’s arms cross. He frowns. “The way that you’re so blasé about this is quite frankly a little bit worrying, Mee. For fuck’s sake, this is serious!” 

His voice must have carried, because the words are scarcely out of his mouth before Cayde appears behind the three of them, almost as if summoned. 

“No one’s ever said that this shit ain’t, Shornell,” Cayde’s voice is quiet. “If you got issues ‘bout somethin’, air’em. We ain’t got time for bellyaching later down the line.” 

There is a moment where everything is silent. The only audible sound is the wind tugging at the treetops and the faint hiss of waves crashing against the shore. Meera watches as Zalli stiffens at Cayde’s words and draws back. 

“It isn’t proper,” he finally spits out, looking furious as he clenches his hands and scowls. “You should both know better than... than beginning something like _ this _!” 

“Your reason bein’?” 

“Look at every single Hunter Vanguard there has been, for starters!” Zalli roars and gestures wildly. “Either they’ve run off to who even knows where, or they’re straight up_ dead_!” 

“Zalli, that’s enough!” Meera cuts in. “This isn’t your choice, it’s mine! He makes me happy—” 

“Tallullah Fairwind!” Zalli’s eyes are narrowed, blazing with fury. 

Cayde meets his glare, calm. “Betting against an Ahamkara would have to be categorized as hazardous to anyone, not just Hunters.” 

“Caliban-8!” 

“Never personally met the guy, but from what I heard he had a wild streak that could rival many a Hunter. Didn’t really help that he got the job from Fairwind.” 

“Aparajita-4, Kauko Swiftriver!” Zalli keeps on firing off names, stalking forward until he’s standing directly in front of Cayde, his nose almost touching the Vanguard’s facial plates. 

“What exactly is your damn point, Shornell?” Cayde asks. He’s getting irritated now, that much is clear to Meera. “C’mon, we don’t got all day here.” 

“Andal Brask.” 

A pin could be heard if it were dropped. 

Cayde stiffens at Zalli’s words. Meera too, for that matter. She freezes and simply stares at Zalli with denial and a morbid sense of wonder loose inside her head. 

“How _dare_—” 

“I ain’t Andal,” Cayde growls, cutting Meera off. “And neither is she. I sure as Hell don’t plan on either of us encountering death by Taniks, and I ain’t gonna let go of her just because a Guardian feels like someone took away his favorite toy.” 

“That isn’t—” 

“If that ain’t why you’re whinging, then please! Enlighten me as to why we’re even having this argument right now!” 

“BECAUSE YOU’LL GET HER KILLED!” Zalli finally roars. “Someday, at some point, there is going to be a mission that’ll go too far! You weren’t up there on Phobos, Vanguard. You didn’t see how bad it was.” 

“I saw_ enough_.” 

“Through video feeds that barely picked up on anything because of all that fucking interference! As if you could even imagine what—” 

Cayde’s hand whips out and hooks the front of Zalli’s collar. The Awoken is a big man, there is no doubt about that, but Cayde’s strength is not something to scoff at. He yanks the Titan’s face down to his and looks him straight in the eyes. When both Meera and Tora step forward, he raises his free hand to motion for both of them to stop. 

“Alright, I think that’s enough for now,” Tora’s voice tries to cut through the tension, but to no avail. The Titan and Hunter both ignore his words as they stare each other down. 

“You have no idea of what I’ve seen out there, Guardian. You have no idea of what it feels like to lose someone so close to you that you can barely think straight for years following their death. Do you know how it feels to lose a brother just because you weren’t thorough enough the first time you encountered the bastard who’d eventually end his life anyway?” 

“Cayde, please,” Meera interjects and puts a hand on his shoulder. “That’s enough.” 

Cayde’s own hand comes up to wrap around hers. His eyes never leave Zalli’s. “She won’t die. I won’t allow it. End of discussion.” 

“If you really think that’s it, you’ve got another thing coming, Hunter Vanguard!” Zalli spits. “Someday you’ll fuck up, or we’ll fuck up. We’re Guardians, not gods. Everybody dies at some point or another, and you’re bad news for her.” 

“Zalli, _enough_!” Meera snarls and steps around Cayde. “You’ve said your piece, now stop acting like a child and let’s go home!” 

“Why, so you can go back to playing house with someone who’ll get you killed?” he drawls and rips himself out of Cayde’s grasp. Zalli’s scowl deepens when he sees Cayde’s hands wrap around Meera from behind. “Get your damn priorities straight, Meera, or don’t come back to this Fireteam.” 

Meera freezes. Her eyes widen. Her lips part in shock. 

What? 

They..._ he _can’t do this. Zalli can’t just throw her out of the Fireteam like this! 

“Y-you—what are you _talking about_, Zalli?!” Tora snaps from the sidelines. “What the Hell has gotten into you?” 

“What’s gotten into me is the new revelation that our teammate has apparently been screwing the top brass for who knows how long and never said a damn fucking thing to either of us!” 

“It’s none of your damn business who I date!” Meera cries out. “And what, now that you know you’re going to throw me out because of this? Because of who I’ve chosen to love?” 

“This isn’t love,” Zalli sneers. “It’s infatuation. He’s going to get you killed, Meera! Just look at what happened when we got sent up to Phobos!” 

“Phobos was a mission sanctioned by the Commander, Zalli,” Tora argues. “The Hunter Vanguard literally had nothing to do with this!” 

Zalli’s face is turning a vicious purple as he draws back and then marches towards their ship. 

“Hey Zal—_ZALLI_!” Tora roars and runs after the Titan, spewing curses like a fountain and leaving behind Cayde and Meera. 

The two of them are silent as they watch Tora and Zalli disappear into the ship. Shouts can still be heard coming from within it. Then, Tora falls through the entry and skids down the ramp, yelling even more obscenities as the ship begins to power up and rise from the ground. Meera immediately sets into a run as she sprints over towards her friend. She falls on her knees in front of him as the ship gets into the air proper and rises above the cottage and open fields. 

“Zalli, you damn bastard, get your ass _back here_!” Tora screams, even if his voice is drowned out by the engines heating up. 

But Zalli doesn’t come back. Instead, he takes off to the skies and the three Guardians left in the Italian countryside keep their eyes on the ship until it is nothing more than a blink in the night sky. 

* * *

Tora sits still as his Ghost flies around him, healing the gash on his forehead, as Meera tends to his scraped palms. 

“Zalli’s a fuckin’ asshole, Mee,” he mumbles without looking up from the floor. “The fuck’s his problem?” 

Meera lets out a brief huff of laughter as she nods. “Yeah, he is, isn’t he?” 

“What the Hell happened back there?” 

“I dunno,” she shrugs and finishes up with the last of the antiseptic. “I wish that I did.” 

Cayde is giving the two of them space, and Meera is more than thankful for it. Even if he does appear to loom from where he’s standing in the corner of the small hut that they’re sitting in, Cayde is giving her space to talk quietly with her friend. But she can feel his eyes burning into the back of her neck the longer that she sits here with Tora, tending to him. 

“Are you sure that you want to...” Tora’s question hangs unanswered in the air. 

Meera glances up as she finishes wiping down his palms. “What, report this? Chances are that Zalli will already be busy doing just that before we get back to the Tower.” 

“What about, y’know,” Tora gestures with his head to Cayde standing behind them. “You two?” 

“The Commander is no doubt going to have words with both of us, if Zalli really is going to report us for misconduct.” 

Tora snorts. “Misconduct? Since when have either of you been behaving unprofessionally?” 

“You’d be surprised.” 

The snort turns into a groan instead. “Urgh, no. Y’know what, never mind. I don’t want to hear about your sordid affair that you’ve probably been practicing for _years_.” 

At this point Cayde comes over with his arms crossed and a stern expression on his face. “It’s time to go.” 

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Tora nods and moves to stand. He points at Cayde’s ship. “Want me to prepare for returning to the Tower?” 

Cayde nods and steps aside for the Warlock, who immediately sets off into a jog towards the ship. The moment that Tora is out of earshot his eyes lock onto Meera’s and he holds out a hand. 

She swallows. Taking his hand looks so easy. And she wants to, oh but she wants to take that hand, but at the same time... if she takes that hand, what will that mean in the future? 

“Mee?” Cayde kneels down in front of her and takes both of her hands in his. “You’re wearing that face again.” 

She frowns. “What face?” 

“The face that says ‘what-am-I-going-to-do-about-this-problem?’. Sweetheart, listen, there are just some things that can’t be solved easily. You of all people should know that.” 

“I’m scared, Cayde,” she sighs and her head hangs. “What am I going to _do_?” 

“Well... how ‘bout we just take this one step at a time? Like the Golden Age people said, Rome wasn’t built in one day.” 

“You’re strangely okay with all of this.” 

Cayde chuckles and raises their hands to press his lips against her knuckles. “I’ve been preparing for our relationship to be outed for _years_, Meera. This isn’t exactly how I hoped that it would happen, but it’s the hand that we’ve been dealt.” 

“And what do you think is going to happen from now on, then?” 

“Oof, that’s a good question,” Cayde winces. “I mean, first off, Zavala’s probably going to kill me, let’s be real here.” 

“He’s not,” Meera’s hands tense in Cayde’s grip and she tugs at them until he releases her. “I won’t _let him_.” 

“Alright, simmer down before you burst a blood vessel, Mee,” Cayde mumbles. His hand comes up to caress her cheek. “No murdering the Commander in cold blood just because we joked about my demise.” 

“I won’t_ let him_, Cayde. He won’t touch you.” 

Cayde smiles at her, but all that Meera can do on the inside is scream. He really has no idea, does he? He really has no idea that she will go through Hell and high water to fight anything that might even _think_ of harming him. 

But Cayde just smiles at her and tugs her up onto her feet. He smiles as if he is blissfully unaware of the fact that if it should ever come to it, Meera would tear through anything and anyone that might even pose the slightest threat to his life, because he is_ hers_, as she is _his. _

“I believe you, Mee. I do.” 

She wishes that she could. She really does. 

* * *

No one says anything on the way home to the Last City and the Tower. 

It’s cramped in there with only one pilot seat, decently cushioned with nice pillows, and the one bunk stowed in the back covered in everything from maps to mission reports to the odd receipt from a take-away restaurant. 

Meera loves it. 

It takes some cajoling and a promise of all manner of sordid things once they’re home, but Tora is eventually planted in the pilot’s seat and put through the mechanics by Sundance as Cayde and Meera retreat to the back of the ship. 

She does her best to ignore the gagging noises and the silly grimaces that Tora makes at her when she drags Cayde with her. 

The two of them make space on the bunk and settle down together, wrapped up in each other. Her cheek rests on his chest and if she really concentrates, she can just barely make out the mechanical noises coming from inside of his chest cavity. The sound is soothing, here in the darkness of his bunk. Neither say a word there in the dim backroom of Cayde’s ship. There is the hum of the engine all around them, and the walls are vibrating with the energy being emitted, but for a moment they have a peaceful instance all to themselves. 

His hand caresses the top of her head, smooths down her matted hair, and Meera nuzzles against his hand in return. 

Of course, that is when Cayde’s comm goes off. 

The device blares insistently, dragging both of them out of that peaceful limbo that they’ve caught themselves in. With a grumble and a curse, Cayde sits up from the bunk, his hand still resting on Meera’s head, and he fumbles for a moment before pressing ‘accept call’ on the comm. 

“_Cayde_.” 

“Zavala,” he answers. 

“_You’re to head back to the Tower immediately. I believe that there is business that we must attend to in lieu of the events on Phobos._” 

“Of course. I’m on my way back with the Guardians from the mission.” 

“_One of them has already arrived. Titan Shornell has asked to report when the whole Vanguard is assembled. See to it that you return promptly_.” 

Zavala cuts out after that. 

Meera and Cayde look at each other, both of them with caution. 

“Do you think that Zalli...” 

“What, told him? I don’t see why Zavala would leave me alive if he had,” Cayde shakes his head and leans back down to press an insistent kiss to her lips. “Try to get some sleep, beautiful. I’ll go harass the Warlock.” 

A fleeting smile lifts up the corners of her mouth over Cayde’s antics. “Don’t irk him too much. He_ is _piloting your ship, after all.” 

“_OI_! We’re almost at the Tower, so whatever hanky-panky it is you’re doin’ back there, you better stop it!” Tora’s voice shouts from the cockpit. It’s enough to drag both Meera and Cayde back into reality. 

For a brief moment Cayde smiles bright and openly, only for Meera’s words to register as his optics widen almost comically. 

“Oh, _shi_—!” 

* * *

It’s well past midnight when they touch down with the Queen of Hearts in the hangar, and when Meera, Tora and Zalli are finally let go by the Vanguard, the sun has just crested the mountains in the east. 

Everything has been handed over to them. Audio logs, video feeds from their Ghosts and even the armor that they’ve been wearing is to be handed over to make sure that whatever it was up there on Phobos, the Taken, hasn’t been dragged back to Earth. 

All in all, every single one of them are exhausted to the extreme. 

Meera hangs back after exiting the Hall of Guardians, staying in the shadows of Shaxx’s alcove as she waits for Zalli to come out as well. She sees Tora come and go, nodding to him in passing, but she never moves. 

She keeps waiting.

_Watching_. 

And finally he comes out, as dark and brooding as when she saw him walk away from her in the middle of the Italian countryside with nary a thought. 

She steps forward, swallows. “Why didn’t you say anything in there?” 

Zalli stops where he is, his back still turned at her. “You actually _want_ a disciplinary hearing?” 

“No, I sure as Hell don’t want that. But you said—” 

“I meant what I said,” he snarls without turning around. Meera flinches when a crackle of Arc energy curls around his clenched hands. “Get your fucking priorities in order, otherwise I don’t want you anywhere near me. I can’t speak for Tora, but I’m not letting you drag him down into this shitshow.” 

“He won’t kill me,” Meera argues and she dares take a step forward. “It won’t happen.” 

“You’re wrong,” Zalli finally turns around to look at her. There is something unspeakably sad in his eyes as he looks at her. They glow an eerie orange glow here in the half-darkness of the Hall. “It is either going to be you or him. But one of you _will _die.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Meera says. She shakes her head in refusal. “It won’t _happen_. We _promised_!” 

“Promises are destined to be broken,” Zalli spits out and for a moment his face is twisted in sorrow before it smooths back into the same harried, _furious_ look that he had just granted her. “Know this... there is _always_ a choice.” 

Meera freezes. 

She has heard those words before, spoken by someone else—_someone recent_—and she gapes at Zalli. But no words come out of her mouth no matter how hard she tries to formulate what it is that she wants to get out. 

“I really do hope that you realize it, Meera,” Zalli says quietly. He steps closer to her and lifts a hand, the same one with Arc energies curling and sizzling around it and presses it to her cheek. 

The Arc does not hurt her. Instead it envelops her, fills her hair and her clothes and her skin with such wonderful, buzzing energy. His hand is soft, gentle against her skin, but it retracts as soon as the two of them hear the door leading into the Vanguards’ briefing room open. 

“Zalli, wait—!” 

“We’ll talk later,” he interrupts her and stalks off, shooting their leaders a brief nod before he disappears around the corner. 

“Guardian Quill, something wrong?” Ikora’s voice is calm, inquisitive, and Meera has to force herself not to bend to its whim. 

“Looks like someone needs a drink. And you deserve one too!” Cayde grins, momentarily breaking the tension that Meera can feel building up inside of her. He walks over and wraps an arm around her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. “I get bragging rights for the next long, _long _while ‘cause of you, y’know? You’re brilliant! Of course, some of that brilliancy is ‘cause of your mentor, but, y’know.” 

“The others helped too, Cayde. I can’t take all of the glory for myself.” 

“Will wonders never cease, a Hunter with her humility still intact,” Ikora laughs and Meera feels the telltale warmth of blushing on her face. “I believe we have a keeper, Cayde.” 

“Damn straight we do!” Cayde’s smile is even wider than before. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Guardian to celebrate with.” 

“We will see you tomorrow, Hunter Vanguard,” Zavala nods slowly, and then he is gone along with Ikora, heading towards their respective Vanguard Quarters. 

It’s silent in the Hall of Guardians without any real traffic. There is the sound of excited Guardians shrieking over whatever it is that Rahool has salvaged from the loot they’ve hauled home, and the ever-present noise of rolling engines from the Guardians coming and going from the Tower. But here, inside the Hall proper, there is only silence. 

“You’re alive,” Cayde sighs and his head comes to a rest on top of Meera’s. 

“I’m alive,” she answers and twists her head just enough to press her lips against his chin. “Now, take me somewhere to celebrate, Hunter Vanguard.” 

Cayde’s eyebrows waggle. “Your wish is my command, my dear!” 

* * *

Time goes on. 

The Dreadnought is infiltrated and Meera once more finds herself in the midst of enemy territory with her Fireteam, only this time there is no Titan to back her up. 

“What are you going to do once we’re back home again?” Tora leans against a pillar as he reloads his shotgun. There’s a patch of bare skin visible on his upper arm where a thrall’s talons have pierced his robes. 

“Sleep,” Meera groans. “Sleep like the dead and not go anywhere for a solid week.” 

“What if the Vanguard—” 

“Respectfully, _fuck _the Vanguard,” Meera spits. “I ain’t doing _shit _after this except taking time for myself.” 

“Respectfully, keep your nocturnal activities to yourself.” 

A snort escapes her. “Eh, that’s fair.” 

“Damn straight it is.” 

Silence fills the air between them. In the background she can faintly hear the screeches of the Hive soldiers stalking the halls of the Dreadnought. 

“Hey, Tora?” 

“Hm?” he looks up from his weapons. 

“Do you...” Meera falters for a moment as she struggles to find the correct words. “Uh, that is... d—do you mind?” 

“Do I mind... what, exactly?” 

He can’t see it, but Meera is blushing. “The thing. Between me and Cayde, I mean. Do you... do you mind that we’re together?” 

The Warlock leans back against the pillar. A questioning noise makes it out and Meera bites her lip as she awaits his answer. 

“Uh, not really, no. I mean, it’s kinda gross to think about all the places you’ve probably screwed each other around the Tower, but other than that, then no. I’m fine with it, so long as you’re happy. Ain’t that really the thing that counts, anyway?” 

The sigh of relief that comes out of Meera sounds so loud from within her helmet. 

“I’m... glad. I really am.” 

“What, you thought that I’d pull a Zalli and bitch about you having relationships with other men?” 

“He wasn’t exactly, y’know,_ approving_.” 

“That’s putting it mildly,” Tora chuckles. “No, I don’t care that you’re dating your Vanguard. I mean, obviously he has to treat you alright or I’ll crush his god damn kneecaps, but if you’re happy and he’s happy, then I’m happy.” 

“Thank you, Tora,” Meera says, quieter this time. “Really... _thank you_.” 

“Don’t mention it.” Tora doublechecks his guns, counts his remaining ammunition and pokes her on the arm with his elbow. “Now, you ready to wreck this asshole’s house?” 

The grin that Meera has on her face might not be visible but it can certainly be heard on her voice. “I was born ready.” 

The two of them once more jump out into the fray, guns blazing and a desire to live lighting their path. 

* * *

They both become Ascendant. 

They prepare to kill Oryx once more. 

_ This time she will not fail__. _

* * *

And Oryx dies. 

* * *

The satisfying sound of her gun going off is drowned out by the scream of utter _ rage _ that echoes throughout Oryx’s chambers. 

Left behind, as the Taken King is felled, slain by the Sword Logic, stands Meera and Tora. Both are drenched in sweat, in their own blood and the fluids that the Hive and Taken have left behind. There is an acrid stench in the air as the two of them fall to their knees, heaving for breath and nearly delirious with ecstasy. 

“We did it,” Tora gulps down mouthful after mouthful of air, finally allowed time to breathe, as the adrenaline races through their veins. “We killed a _fucking God_.” 

“Traveler, we killed a God,” Meera babbles. She sits in the gory midst of slain enemies but she could have been anywhere else and not even noticed. There is a ringing in her ears and a glaze in front of her eyes as she stares out into the nothingness of space. 

The ruined remains of an Awoken starship hovers past them, crushed by Oryx’s weapon from the beginning of this whole mess. It’s pilot hangs through the crushed frontal window, lifeless. 

Their comms are both buzzing with activity, but the interference is too strong. Whatever is being said to them is not getting through. And even if it were, there is still too much in their heads and in the air around them to even_ think_ of moving. 

But they can’t stay here. 

Meera knows this, that logically it would be in their best interests to get both of their asses into gear and haul them out of the Dreadnought before every single damn Taken, Hive or other thing that might be on board finds them. 

In the end it’s their Ghosts that make the decision for them. 

“Alright, time to go. _Both of you_,” her Ghost demands and insistently prods at Meera with his tiny fins. 

She reaches up to cup her hands around him and strokes along his casing. “What would I do without you, little Light?” 

Her Ghost chirps and rotates his back fins. “Probably still be dead in the middle of the Cosmodrome. Now, let’s_ go_!” 

They go. 

* * *

There is no great fanfare when they return from the Dreadnought. 

The only ones there in the hangar are Zavala, Ikora and Cayde. 

Her Vanguard is grinning like an absolute madman as he leans against one of the hangar’s support pillars and playing with one of the million knives that he has hidden around on his person. He stops playing with it as soon as the door to their ship opens up and reveals Meera and Tora, tired but victorious. 

Without so much as a word, Meera marches down the ramp and walks right past both the Commander and Ikora. She stops in front of Cayde and throws her arms around him, not even caring that the rest of her superiors are no more than a few meters away. 

“I knew you could do it,” Cayde grins as he enthusiastically returns the hug. “_I knew it_!” 

Meera doesn’t answer him. Instead she keeps up the firm embrace for a few more moments before she reluctantly retracts and turns to face the remaining Vanguard. 

“I am not doing a single thing for the foreseeable future,” she says without caring in the slightest. She’s fought a fucking God, if anything then she deserves a break. “I don’t care if the Fallen have decided to reenact Six Fronts or if Crota has risen from the fucking dead. I ain’t _doing it_.” 

“Noted,” Ikora says drily. “Anything else?” 

“Don’t contact me for the next two weeks. Won’t answer.” 

“Uh,” her Ghost hovers awkwardly by her side, “What she means is probably—” 

“Is probably ‘do not disturb’. Ghost, kindly stay out of this,” Meera cuts him off before he gets going. Like Hell is he going to ruin this for her. All that she is going to think about is Cayde, sleep and food. Maybe even a drink or two, who knows? 

“We’ll, uh, figure out the report as fast as possible, Master Ikora,” Tora babbles somewhere behind her. He continues on saying something else, but Meera is too tired to keep her attention in the present. 

Somewhere in the Tower there’s a bed with her name on it. And she plans on_ using it_. 

Cayde must see it in her eyes because he wrangles her arm around his shoulders and start pulling her with him towards the exit of the hangar. 

“I’ll take this one to bed. You got your own duckling, Ikora?” 

Ikora says something back but her voice is muddled and incohesive. 

Meera’s fine with it. She’s tired. She’s safe. She did it. 

Thank the Light. They actually did it. 

* * *

The next three weeks are absolute _heaven_. 

She wakes up in the mornings without a care for when she actually has to report in, ready for duty. Instead she sits up in her bed and smooths her fingers over the sheets beside her, creased from use and still smelling of Cayde. They’re always cool when she finally comes back to consciousness, but that is more than fine for her. 

Being alone is precious. 

It gives her time to think, to mull over the things that are happening around her. 

Because she survived this time. 

Oryx is dead once more and she is alive, not trapped back at the beginning once more because of a stupid mistake. The Ahamkara, or whatever it is, hasn’t caught her this time. 

She won’t be caught in the web of lies that keeps spinning around her. 

It doesn’t matter _what_ the Queen said, it won’t happen! 

* * *

It’s after Skolas’ capture and imprisonment when Petra approaches her in the Vestian Outpost. 

They’re resupplying before making the trip back home to Earth—_back home to __Cayde_. 

“Guardian Quill?” 

Meera looks up from the crates that she is busy logging into their inventory. She frowns when she spots the Queen’s Wrath looking distinctively uncomfortable. 

“Yeah? Something I can help you with, Petra?” 

Petra looks a bit... uncomfortable. “Your presence is being... requested.” 

“By who? I already spoke with Variks, and I’m quite certain that Zalli has handed over the repor—” 

“The_ Queen _is asking for your appearance, Quill,” Petra grits out. One of her hands clenches as Meera just stands there, staring. “Sometime this cycle would be appreciated.” 

“What in the name of the Traveler does the Queen want with _me_?” 

“The Prince asked that very same question when Queen Mara made her request. Well,_ almost,_” Petra admits and looks to the side, to anywhere but directly at Meera. “It is not a normal request for her to make. I would suggest that you make great haste and follow me.” 

“This isn’t something that can be refused, is it?” 

“Not if you wish to continue staying on neutrally friendly terms with the Outpost, no,” Petra shakes her head and gestures behind her. “Now, come along.” 

* * *

“It is... different.” 

Queen Mara Sov of the Awoken is as beautiful as she is terrifying. 

Meera shuffles awkwardly, clenching and unclenching her hands as she stands before the throne of the Awoken, being looked down upon by a woman older than anything else in the system. 

“I am afraid that I don’t know what you are talking about, your Grace.” 

The Queen’s eyes are downright unnerving as she lounges on her throne, Fallen vandals flanking her and gripping their spears tightly. It won’t take more than a wave of her hand and Mara could have Meera skewered on those spears like she is nothing more than a gnat, a fly, an irritant. 

“It is not what it appears to be,” the Queen smiles, showing a brief flash of teeth that is more warning than welcoming and beckons for her to come closer. “The Queen wishes to know why one like this has come here.” 

“Not by choice, I can tell you that much,” Meera answers curtly, ignoring the warning hisses from her Ghost. “As for what I am then you have already been informed, your Grace. I am a Guardian. Before I was that I was as human as they come.” 

“Now it is… more.” 

“Supposedly. I am still figuring out everything myself.” 

“Honesty. Not something that one would expect from the Guardians of Earth.” 

“I don’t have the time or patience for schemes. Might as well tell it like it is, and face the consequences.” 

“Bluntness. As I understand it, your Titans are usually fitting into this archetype.” 

“Well, there’s always the occasional deviant.” 

Mara laughs. It is like bells chiming in the depths of space, dark and light and horrible and beautiful. 

“This one is... amusing. The other two were wrong in keeping you from being presented here.” 

“I prefer to stay in the background, your Grace. Keeps me humble.” 

“Keeps you watching, you mean,” a voice hisses behind her and Meera’s world crumbles. 

_ Uldren_. 

She wants to turn around with drawn weapons and shoot him until her magazine dries up and her lungs are bereft of air. 

_ She wants to_. 

But she doesn’t. 

* * *

Hissing, Meera is brought back to the present when a sharp prick of pain startles her. She looks down at her hand and frowns. 

Red blood is dripping from where her nails have pierced through her skin and into the flesh beneath. It falls down onto the sheets, staining them with red droplets and she lets out a noise of annoyance. 

Damn it, this is going to be a bitch to get out later. 

Her Ghost flashes into existence beside her and wordlessly goes about healing the small cresents in her palm. 

Meera sighs and lets him work. She bites her lower lip as she leans back against the headboard of the bed and tangles her fingers in the stained sheets. 

She hasn’t told anyone what happened between her, Mara and Uldren. 

Not even Cayde. 

Admitting that she was _this close _to his killer and not doing anything about it... that is not something that she would dare risk anyone knowing. 

He would never forgive her, probably. 

She knows that _she _wouldn’t. 

“Do you have any plans for today, Meera?” 

She looks over at her Ghost who is not hovering in the air right in front of her. Smiling she extends her now-healed hand and he floats over to rest in it. 

“I was thinking about hitting up the archives. Maybe go look through the Great Hunt records once more.” 

“But we’ve already been through those several times. What could they even reveal that we haven’t already noted down already?” 

“Eh, you never know. Might even run into Cayde, and that’s always fun.” 

Ghost lets out a rude noise and Meera laughs. 

Laughing is so much easier than dwelling on unpleasant memories, after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author speaking here.  
You, yeah, _you_, go take a break. Drink some water.__  
Next chapter's a long one.


	9. Cayde V

Winter has come to the Last City. 

The streets are filled with paper lanterns and candles as people prepare to celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one. Both children and adults are participating, each and every year. For them it is a chance at keeping the small bit of hope that the Guardians have granted them alive yet. 

Cayde loves it. 

All of it is, quite frankly, amazing. 

It never ceases to amaze him how Eva Levante manages to control the weeks-long event as tightly as she does with sugar-hyped Guardians milling about, sending chocolates, cakes and cookies to every distant corner of the System that they can. But—_somehow _—she manages to do it from her little corner in the Tower. 

Hell, even Shaxx of all people shushes down when Eva once more wrangles a few Fireteams into helping her with all of the decoration crates and rolls out in style. 

By the end of her declarations, the Tower Courtyard looks more like something out of the fairytale books that he has seen in bookstores around the City than a meeting hub for some of the most powerful creatures in the Sol System. 

“She sure is goin’ all out, huh,” Cayde notes to Ikora as the two of them exit the Hall of Guardians. There are excited shrieks coming from somewhere out there, the telltale signs of a snowball fight, and Cayde_ wants in _. 

“Of course she is,” Ikora smiles and runs a hand over her scalp to brush away the snowflakes lingering there. “Eva has never done anything without going that particular extra mile for as long as I can remember.” 

“Same here,” Cayde agrees before nudging the Warlock. “Hey, you game for a few rounds of snowball fighting?” 

“Not on the clock, Cayde,” Ikora shakes her head and gives him a little smile, just barely an upward curl of her lips. “Maybe later.” 

“I ain’t hearin’ a no,” he grins and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Prepare to be decimated later on.” 

“In your dreams, Hunter,” she snorts before pulling away. Ikora nods at him and then disappears in the direction of the Speaker’s pavilion, leaving Cayde in the middle of the Courtyard with Guardians scattered all over while fighting for their life in the snow. 

“God damn Warlocks,” he huffs and sticks his hands into his pockets, trying to get the phantom aches of cold to disappear from his appendages. “Always gotta have the last word.” 

A ground of Titans and Hunters are in a fierce snowball fight over by Rahool’s setup. From the looks of it, the Hunters are attempting to lay siege to the wall of snow that the Titans have built up with varying degrees of success. 

Cayde cheers them on and receives a spinning snowball right on his horn from the Titans in return. 

He retreats with a chuckle and then shuffles in the direction of the Hunter Barracks, a place that he_ knows _is equipped with not only a magnificent coffee maker but also a newly installed fireplace after the first snows blew in. He’ll get a few cans brewing, maybe even bring a cup or two to Eris if she wants some. Or cocoa. 

Cayde can almost feel himself salivate at the thought of hot cocoa. 

A band of Hunters greet him when he rushes into the barracks, busy with cards or something to pass the time. He waves back before heading straight to the coffee machine and soon enough the amazing scent of fresh, strong coffee begins spreading inside the room. 

One of the Hunters goes over to the fireplace and stokes the flames, applying a few more logs of wood before heading back to their game. 

This is cozy. Downright domestic, almost. 

His comm beeps insistently and Sundance translates that a new set of reports have come in. Grumbling, he takes his coffee and heads towards his office rooms in the back of the building. Reports at a time like this where he’d much rather be buried beneath a mountain of blankets are _such _a pain in the ass. 

His office is dark with only minimal lighting fighting its way through his blinds, and there’s his favorite shitty plastic Dawning tree standing in the corner, complete with a tarnished silver Ghost on top and scavenged decorations collected from over the years. 

With coffee in hand he drags himself to his desk and pulls out the comm with another grumble. Scrolling through them idly, he leans back in the chair and sips from his beverage. The light in here is dim, exactly how he likes it on lay days, and beneath his breath he hums a wordless melody. 

Then, suddenly, there is only darkness as something covers up his eyes. 

Cayde startles and immediately curses when the sudden movement has boiling-hot coffee spilling over the rim of his mug and down his fingers. 

“Happy Dawning,” a voice whispers gleefully into his ear as the hands slip away from his eyes and instead travel down the front of his armor. 

Soft, pliable lips begin kissing their way down the side of his neck, worrying at a miniscule bit of wire poking out, and Cayde lets out a static-laced groan. 

“Meera...” 

He can hear her chuckle. “Mhmm?” 

“Traveler’s cracks, girl. I’m _working_.” 

“Like Hell you are,” she snickers and Cayde suddenly has to sit up straight when she cups him through his pants. “You’re bored out of your mind, Cayde. It’s _obvious_.” 

“Alright, well, I’m _supposed _to be working,” he manages to grit out between her dastardly tempting actions. One of his hands, the fuckin’ _traitor _, is making its own way down to cover hers above his crotch. “Zavala is going to kill me if this isn’t done today.” 

“You don’t want to take a break? _Someone _is certainly happy to see me, if you aren’t, that is.” 

How her voice manages to sound both inviting and judging he will never understand, but what he _does _understand is that apparently his body is going rogue. 

Meera slips around his chair and then immediately straddles him. She presses him against the chair, grinding against him deliciously, and there is a moment where Cayde’s vision is nothing but white-black static and blurry polygons. 

“Oh, _Light_,” he groans. The traitorous hand from before removes itself from Meera’s and instead reaches up to tangle in her hair. It feels amazing and soft and it smells of _ her _. 

Meera’s lips are lovely and soft and so wonderfully organic against his and this time he greedily opens his mouth when she beckons. Heady desire begins to override the faintly lingering sense of responsibility still existing in the back of his head, and Cayde can almost picture a miniscule version of himself waving a solemn goodbye to the valiant part of his brain that is supposed to be the responsible one. 

“You_ minx_,” Cayde growls as he regretfully pushes away from Meera and looks her over. With flushed cheeks, puffy lips and that damn look in her eyes that promise more than a fair share of naughty shenanigans, she is the very picture of desire. He lets one of his fingers run over her lip, caressing it softly. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” 

Meera’s smile goes from lustful to somber at his words and she nuzzles against his hand. “We have each other, after so many botched attempts. Let’s just enjoy every moment that we can get.” 

Now that clarity is slowly beginning to seep back into his brain, Cayde is thinking a whole lot more clearly than he has for the past several moments. He leans in just to get that one last kiss before he actually _will _begin the work that he needs done before the evening is upon them, and as her lips part— 

“Cayde, you’re needed in the Courtyard!” Sundance flashes into existence as both Cayde and Meera fly apart. 

“Fucking—I’m sorry, _what_?” 

“You’re needed,” the Ghost repeats. She bops in the air, insistently. “That snowball fight between the Titans and Hunters has escalated, apparently.” 

Cayde groans as he leans back in his chair, covering his eyes with a hand and praying to every deity out there listening. “For fuck’s sake...” 

With a snicker Meera slides off his lap, making sure to press insistently against his crotch the whole way, before she leans down and pecks him on the lips. “Go get your kids in order, dear. I’ll be waiting at home.” 

“Make sure to have a hot meal ready, deary,” Cayde snarks right back at her. 

Meera’s middle finger greets him just before she leaves the room. 

* * *

It’s dark, wherever he is. 

Darkness and cold envelops him, chills him to the bone, but he has to walk forward. 

_ He has to. _

The darkness around him shimmers and twists, as if there is something else out there hiding in it. Narrowing his eyes, Cayde steps forward and raises a hand to scratch at the base of his horn, unconsciously. 

Only... there is no horn to scratch at when he lifts his hand. Actually, there’s a whole lot of softness that feels a lot like normal _ hair _, instead of hard, not-so-pliable plating and wires. 

And, it’s _cold._

All around him the darkness falls away, reveals jagged iceplains and a clear, black sky above dotted with white blinking stars in the distance. 

Cayde’s hands fall and he looks down, simply staring, because there in front of him he doesn’t see the silicone-padded fingers and alloy-casing that he knows, but instead he sees soft, pink hands. _ Flesh_. He raises one of them, not quite sure if he should marvel at the soft, pliable joints and fingernails and the small hairs that he can see on the back of his hand. When he hesitantly presses the hand against his cheek, scared of what he might find instead of his facial plates, his fingertips press against stubbled skin and his hand immediately recoils. 

A humming drone echoes in the back of his head. Beckons him to look at the tower rising behind him that he knows is there even if he hasn't put his eyes on it yet. 

“This ain’t real,” he whispers and shakes his head. Traveler’s crack, hearing his voice without the mechanical whir that he has always had is... shit, but it’s jarring. The new weight of his hair—_and holy shit he has hair __again!_—swaying around his hair is surreal. It... it just _can’t _be real. This is a dream, an illusion, some sort of deranged nightmare that he can’t seem to wake up from. 

“Of course it’s a dream, you daft scrap bucket,” a voice laughs behind him. 

_ They always made sure that we kept dreaming of __goin'__ back here, Ace. Always made sure to keep us in line with the lingering threat that someday_—_maybe_—_they could make all of us disappear with but a snap of their fingers _

Cayde turns around slowly, scared of what he might find, and has to force himself not to run straight ahead when he sees the owner of the voice. 

Andal Brask, looking healthy and whole and not at all skewered by a Fallen lance, nor riddled by bullets, looks at him with a gentle, somber smile. Everything from his scraggly ponytail to his patchy beard, dark skin, gentle eyes, amazing smile—_everything_ is as Cayde remembers it. 

His brother is standing there in the darkness in front of him, perfectly preserved. It’s almost like he’s never really been gone. 

“Hey there, Cayde,” the man says. “It’s, ah... been a while, yeah?” 

“Andal...” 

“Yup,” Andal grins. He feels... different. Not_ real _real. “It’s me!” 

“You’re dead,” Cayde spits out, bluntly, and that is when Andal’s face falls. He stops smiling and instead looks down at the snowy ground, scraping his heel in it. His boot leaves no marks in the show and ice. “How the fuck is it that _you’re_ here?” 

“It’s your dream, ain’t it?” Andal counters and raises one eyebrow. “Ask yourself.” 

Cayde recoils. The vision of Andal in front of him seems... _off_, for lack of a better word. 

“Isn’t this what you wished for?” 

He sees Andal’s lips move, but then it isn’t Andal in front of him anymore. 

Instead, he morphs into Meera, into Sundance’s dead and Lightless shell, into a vast creature that rises in front of him, with Meera’s face—beckoning, luring, _dangerous_. 

_ He[__Cayde__ screams]wished for all of this to __stop[__keep going please don’t stop oh Light __ohCaydeohOhOHoHCAYDE]_

He is naked, without weapons or armor as hands wrap around his now-fleshy arms, as lips press against his insistently, and he sees Meera, sees Andal, sees both as the two most important people in his life meet and becomes one, becomes both—joined in erotic bliss as their heads are thrown back—he hears her moan, knows that sound from when_ he _is the one to tease that sound from her lips in blissful orgasm—and Andal groans as he spasms, as his ejaculate shoots from his cock and paints the two of them with droplets of sticky, white semen. 

And Cayde _screams _. 

_ I[Riven]am[eternal]always with you[O]Guardian Mine _

* * *

That giant mouth smiles the whole way through it all. 

* * *

Winter and the Dawning turns into Spring and the Crimson Days, a new year and a new start that is sorely needed on top of all the shit that has happened so far. 

Cayde never tells anyone about that dream. 

Not a soul, not even Sundance, becomes privy to the twisted, fucked up place that is Cayde’s dreamscape. 

And it’s not like Meera doesn’t try to pry it out of him for the following weeks, months. After all, if she had woken him up, crying and screaming, shaking from unwanted pleasure and covered in the fluids thereof, he would be all over her until she confessed. 

But it’s fucked up. Not normal. 

She’ll think he’s fucking crazy if he says anything. 

So, he doesn’t. 

Much, much simpler. 

* * *

Normally Cayde is overjoyed whenever Shiro drags his scrappy ass out of whatever counts as his current place of residence out there in the Wilds and into the Tower, but this time he isn’t. 

Shiro is a reminder of happier times with Andal and Andal is a reminder of... well... 

Cayde still can’t forget that fucking dream. 

But appear he does, and it takes all the energy that Cayde can spare to not just drag the other Exo into a firm hug right there in the middle of the hangar. 

It’s late Spring and even up here the smell of blooming flowers is thick and cloying in the air. 

“Shiro!” he settles for a wide grin, only slightly wobbly, and a devil-may-care attitude. “Never thought I’d see you until Saladin finally let you so sometime next millennium.” 

Shiro guffaws and clasps Cayde around the shoulders. His arm is a welcome, familiar weight that Cayde hasn’t even realized that he’s been missing. 

Huh... 

“Well, you certainly haven’t changed since last I saw you, Hunter Vanguard,” the Exo snickers and gives him a onceover. “Contrary to what Shaxx will have you believe, Saladin only acts on his slavedriver tendencies _sometimes_.” 

“Wow, you are just _so _reassuring to your mentor right now,” Cayde mutters and easily wrestles loose from Shiro’s grip. “Now, what’s the useful intel you’re bringing with you?” 

“Not for your eyes or ears yet,” Shiro sniffs as he walks with Cayde towards the Courtyard. His Ghost is hovering in the background, chatting up a storm with Sundance and Cayde can feel every ounce of relief from his Ghost. “Vanguard business.” 

“Hey,_ I’m _your damn Vanguard!” if Cayde sounds annoyed it’s because he _is_. That’s what no proper sleep for the past two weeks will get ya, after all. “Show some damn respect to your elders, you demented metal-sheet.” 

“Right back at ya,” Shiro winks before he straightens up and a somewhat guarded expression replaces the carefree mirth. “I can’t talk ‘bout it right now, Cayde. Not out in the open like this. Saladin sent me to brief you folks back here about the situation out in the Cosmodrome.” 

Cayde frowns. “The Cosmodrome? The Hell are you talkin’ ‘bout, Shiro?” 

“There’ll be a meeting later today probably, see ya there,” Shiro waves and is gone in the next second, leaving Cayde in the middle of the hallway between the Courtyard and the Hangars, lost and more than just a little bit confused. 

“The Hell is he talkin’ ‘bout?” he mutters to himself. When Sundance hovers there beside him he reaches up to caress her backfins. “You got any idea?” 

“No, nothing,” she says and looks at him. “You doing alright, Cayde?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You’ve been... quiet, lately. More so than normal.” 

Cayde snorts, moving once more. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means you’re not _talking_. And it’s really, really _weird_,” she huffs. “Like, fix it!” 

“Wha—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cayde grumbles at her and turns away. “Slander and lies, all of it. I talk _plenty_, just ask Meera.” 

“Who do you think brought it to my attention, you idiot.” 

“Oh...” 

“Yeah, ‘oh’.” 

He shuffles his feet, idly kicks at a leaf that has blown itself into his way. When his Ghost nuzzles into the folds of his scarf he automatically raises a hand to caress her chassis and smiles when he hears the telltale clicks and chirps that signal her pleasure. 

“Sorry, ‘Dance,” he mumbles. “Dunno what’s been pickin’ at me lately.” 

“Does it have something to do with what is coming?” Sundance, ever the diplomatic one, is a damn saint and Cayde praises his luck every day for her existence. “Or, has something deviated from what you knew before?” 

“Oh, a whole lot has deviated, that’s for damn sure,” Cayde mutters. “You’d be wheezing if you really knew everything that has changed.” 

“Well, what is about to happen now?” 

“Now?” Cayde frowns. “Huh, well, the next big thing that happened after Oryx was...” 

He trails off as his mind catches up. 

No. 

It can’t be. Not already. It’s only just gotten into Spring; it’s way too fucking early for SIVA to rear its ugly head out there. The Fallen can’t already now have found the vault beneath the Plaguelands—this shit just ain’t _happening_. 

“Oh, _fuck_.” 

* * *

It_ is _happening. 

Shiro calls the Vanguard together that very same afternoon. Tells them of Saladin’s suspicions. 

All that Cayde can think of is_ how_. 

It’s not time yet. It can’t be. It was cold and windy when Meera was sent out and this can’t already happen now why why why why WHY WHY WH_Y_ _WHY?! _

He misses whatever it is that Shiro says as he finishes his report, and if it isn’t for Sundance nudging at his shoulder he would probably have missed the other Exo looking at him expectantly. 

“What?” 

“So, you have someone that you can send out there with me? I, ah..._ might _be a little bit overwhelmed with all of this shit, and Saladin needs an extra pair of eyes out there. Neither of us can be everywhere, sadly.” 

Cayde frowns. “I—” 

The doors leading into their meeting room opening breaks Cayde’s attention, and he frowns as he sees a familiar Titan stride in. 

_ Zalli __ S__hornell _

“You wanted to see me, Commander?” the Titan straightens his back and salutes at Zavala before nodding to both Ikora and Cayde. 

“Indeed,” Zavala says as he stands from his chair and walks around the table. “Guardian, the Vanguard has an assignment that I believe you will be well suited for.” 

If it’s possible, Shornell straightens his back even further than it already is. The smug bastard gets an insufferable smirk plastered across his face too, the absolute _prick_. 

And there stands Shiro, caught in the middle and looking very much uncomfortable with the amount of tension that is rolling off Cayde in waves. 

“An assignment, you say?” the prick asks, avoids looking over in Cayde’s general direction. “Where to? What about?” 

“You trust this one, Commander?” Shiro finally breaks the tension somewhat. He leans against the table with crossed arms as he looks Shornell over. “This ain’t a walk in the park.” 

“Titan Shornell has shown good results on previous assignments from the Vanguard, whether it has been with his own Fireteam or alone. I believe that he is more than capable of aiding you out there in the Plaguelands.” 

“Very well,” Shiro nods slowly and pushes off the table. “I’ll ask that you forward information on the Guardian to my Ghost. Until next time, Vanguard, Guardian.” 

Cayde doesn’t wait for the rest of his colleagues to leave before he’s out himself. With Andal’s cloak flapping behind him he stalks out of the meeting room, down corridors and narrow walkways until he stands outside. 

The Last City lies far, far beneath him, glinting lazily from the hazy light reflected off of the Traveler’s scorched underbelly. This perch of his gives him an incredible view that stretches as far as the human eye can see, and even then some due to his mechanical eyes. He settles against a raised part of the roofing and slides down until his backside is resting securely against the sturdy material and finally lets out a loud, wheezing sigh. Without saying a word, Sundance flies out from where she has settled in his scarf and nuzzles his cheek. He idly rubs at her fins in return. 

“It’s out of order,” he whispers. 

“What do you mean ‘out of order’? Didn’t this happen as well?” 

He nods, slowly. “It did. But later. And it wasn’t that smarmy prick who got the job.” 

“Meera did.” 

Cayde nods again. He clenches his free hand and grimaces. He might not be the brightest lightbulb out there in the universe, but even _ he _ knows that shit gets real when you fiddle around with time and space. There’s a reason why it ain’t done. 

“It’ll be fine.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“And you don’t know that it won’t, Cayde. Take a chance._ Breathe_.” 

“Don’t need to.” 

Sundance’s glare feels like a searing hot knife. 

“You are not very useful right now, you know,” his Ghost huffs before she disappears in a flash of Light. 

So, there he sits. All alone on top of the Tower’s roof with the Traveler and skies above him, the Last City beneath him and nothing to do. _No one_ to do, either. 

It sucks major balls that Meera’s away for some Taken cleanup out on Venus. 

“_Eurgh_.” 

He’s getting way too old for this shit. 

* * *

A new day brings more work, and for once Cayde actually struggles to get out of his bed. The sheets are tangled and twisted all around beneath him, he’s missing his favorite female human-shaped body pillow and to top everything off, it looks like he’s late. 

Today really just feels like a day he’d enjoy spending right here, in bed, making his way down Meera’s naked body from top to toe without a care about the duties awaiting him back at the Hall of Guardians. So, when Sundance decides to get him out herself by surprise-transmatting him from the bedroom to the freezing cold tiles out in the kitchen he nearly shatters the windows with the shriek that he lets out. 

After chastising his Ghost, getting on his clothes and grabbing his gun, Cayde then proceeds to grumble nonverbally at anyone and anything that gets in his way as he heads towards the Hall of Guardians. Outside, even the Sun seems to taunt him wordlessly as it shines bright and sharp from its spot just above the eastern mountains. 

Cayde wordlessly salutes the offending object with his middle finger. 

He waves a half-assed greeting at Eris when he passes her and just nods morosely when she says something back at him—look, he’s tired, got up late and hasn’t even had coffee yet. It’s a crime to even _ask _if he is somewhere close to functioning properly right now. 

The only good thing so far about this whole situation as a whole is that he won’t be looking at Shornell’s ugly mug for the foreseeable future, if he’s lucky the asshole might just stay out there in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and never return. Well, that, and also seeing Shiro in the Hall of Guardians—yeah, that actually helps bring his mood up from ‘absolute shit’ to ‘marginally worse than usual’. 

“Shiro.” 

“Cayde,” he nods and smiles. Even lifts a hand up in greeting, clutching a steaming coffee mug that is handed over to Cayde the moment that he is close enough to grab it. 

Yeah, Shiro is the absolute best when he’s not being an ass to his elders. 

“I am ‘this’ close to confessing my love to you,” Cayde groans as he gulps down the liquid divinity that is coffee, holding two fingers mere millimeters apart. “Traveler above, this is amazing.” 

“It’s standard fare coffee from the machine down in the mess hall.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s still better than the swill I can get my own coffee maker to create, that’s for damn sure.” 

“If you say so,” Shiro chuckles and leans against the table. “Rough night?” 

Wincing, Cayde glances over at him. “That easy to spot?” 

“Cayde, I’ll put this as eloquently as I possibly can... you look like _shit_.” 

Cayde slams a fist weakly into Shiro’s arm. “Prick. I look sexy as Hell, and you_ know it_.” 

“In your dreams, maybe,” Shiro says, his tone dry as Martian sand as he idly rubs at the spot where Cayde just punched him. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re pretty late. Zavala’s on the warpath, trying to find you.” 

“Well, I’m here now. And, not that I don’t appreciate you warnin’ me or nothin’, but don’t you have a Guardian to take to the fuck end of nowhere?” 

“In a bit, yeah,” Shiro nods. “Wanted to say goodbye first, though. We don’t see each other all that much anymore, Cayde.” 

“No, we don’t, do we?” 

Shiro cracks a grin and shuffles his shoulder against Cayde’s. “Hey. Don’t be a damn stranger all the time. You’re allowed to take time off, y’know. Don’t go turning into Andal on me, all responsible and shit.” 

Cayde chortles. Straight up_ chortles_. “Pfft, me, _responsible_? You’ve got bad hydrozine in your system or somethin’. Not me, never, no sirree.” 

“See, you say that, but the rumor mill says that you’ve gotten tied down with someone.” 

Closing his eyes, Cayde rests his head against the table. He’s going to _ kill _ whoever has started that damn rumor. “Why can’t you just—” 

“_Cayde-6_!” 

“Oh, fuck.” 

“Yeah, fuck,” Shiro smirks as he watches Zavala storm through the entryway to the Vanguard Hall. He claps Cayde on the shoulder. “Good luck taming the lion, yeah?” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Love you too, buddy,” Shiro is off before Zavala reaches them, but just before transmatting out he turns around, sporting an absolute _diabolic_ grin. “Oh, and say hi to the missus for me, yeah?” 

If looks could kill, Shiro would be nothing but bits of binary code floating around somewhere in Clovis Bray’s old systems. 

“You mother_f__ucker_!” 

* * *

It is well known that Guardians are absolutely_ horrid _gossipers. 

Nothing gets a gaggle of Guardians going quite like fresh, hot gossip, the promise of loot and chasing down adrenaline highs like the undead thrill junkies that they all collectively are. And oh, but the juicy little tidbit that Shiro let loose before taking off? 

The Tower is practically on_ fire_. 

For crying out loud, he is practically shadowed by a constant squad of Guardians at all hours of the day that he is out in the public eye, and he is quite sure that at least _someone_ has hacked into his handheld because all of a sudden a ton of pictures—all of them very, very _naked _and very, very _lewd_—have begun popping into his inbox. And, not that he ain’t flattered, ‘cause some of those people—all Guardians, no doubt—are lookin’ _damn fine_, but they’re not Meera. That’s the important part. 

And on the subject of his Queen of Hearts... 

She comes home a few days after Shiro has absconded with her former Fireteam playmate and then proceeds to puzzle Cayde completely when she finds the whole situation utterly hilarious. 

“I can’t believe he did that!” she shrieks with laughter as she leans against Cayde. Sundance hovers in the air in front of the two of them, playing the recording so that she can see what all of the fuss is about. “Shiro is an asshole, I love it.” 

“Yeah, you might,” Cayde grumbles. He plays absentmindedly with a few strands of hair that have escaped her braid. “But you’re also not the one who gets nudes sent to your direct inbox.” 

“Nudes?” she turns around and looks at him. There are still traces of mirth lingering in her eyes. “_Really_?” 

“Yeah, really,” he nods. “Here, see.” 

Meera lets out a whistle as she looks over the various photos that are still sitting there in his inbox. 

“Damn. How many have you received?” 

“Since Shiro left?” Cayde leans back as he quickly does the mental math. “Uh, around 200 or so... I_ think_.” 

“You _think_? You don’t know?” 

“Wha—_no_! I don’t keep track of shit like that. Jesus, Mee.” 

“Well, you never know.” 

“_Urgh_. I liked it better when you were jealous of my attention.” 

“To be fair, Hawthorne was all up in your business while I was sitting in your lap. You were quite clearly _mine_.” 

Cayde raises an eyebrow. “Oh, was I now?” 

“Uh, yeah? I mean, how’d _you_ stake a claim?” 

A smirk spreads across Cayde’s face as an idea takes root. He leans forward, pressing gentle kisses on her cheeks, on her eyelids, her chin. Down he goes until he is practically mauling her neck with all of the nips and caresses that he is plastering her neck with. 

“Like this,” he whispers and then he _bites_. 

Meera squeaks and jolts in his lap, but Cayde holds on as he bites down on her neck and immediately soothes the area by pressing a cooler plate of his against the now-red and quite inflamed skin. 

“What the actual fuck, Cayde?” she snaps and rolls off of him, clutching the tender part of her neck. A reddish mark is already beginning to bloom into darker purples around where his teeth have made indents. 

“You asked,” he protests and raises his hands. “I did nothing but set an example!” 

“Example my ass! You mauled my fucking neck!” 

“I ‘staked my claim’, thank you very much,” he sniffs and holds out one hand. “Wanna see me mark the rest of ya as well?” 

A short bout of incredulous laughter erupts from Meera at his shameless statement. “You’re not serious, right?” 

“Damn straight I am,” he boasts, cocksure and happy now that she is actually home and within kissing distance. He likes that best. “I promise that I won’t bite—” 

“Bull_shit_!” 

“—hard, that is. And also, you will have to give me permission first.” 

“In your dreams, asshole!” she is tackling him in moments, grinning and squealing as the two of them roll from the couch and onto the floor. 

She rolls her hips against his and makes a happy noise in the back of her throat when he readily reciprocates. Here, with Meera in his arms, is where he truly feels safe and secure—just the two of them tucked away in their little corner of the world with no one to try and keep them apart any longer. 

“I love you,” he rasps out when his hands finally release all of the buckles and clips on her armor and he can finally feel her skin, soft and smooth, beneath his hands. “So much, Mee.” 

She stops for a moment, looking at him with wide wonderous eyes as she takes in what he just said. There’s a moment of absolute silence between them, the only noise in the apartment being her heavy breathing and his machinery whirring beneath his plates. A few strands of hair are sticking to her forehead. He lifts a hand to pull them out of her face and she automatically nuzzles against him. 

“I, uh...” Meera seems utterly dumbfounded, for once she can’t find anything quick or smart to say, and Cayde silently revels in it. “I love you, too?” 

“You say it like it’s a question,” Cayde frowns. His sex drive is making it mighty hard to focus when her breasts are practically hanging bare right in front of him. 

“I don’t mean it like a question,” she says, shaking her head slightly. Her movements makes her breasts jiggle ever so slightly and Cayde finds that his eyes are drawn southwards quite fast. “It's jus—_hey_! Eyes up here, buddy!” 

“I’m lookin’, I’m _lookin'_! Jeez...” 

“Oh you were looking alright,” she smirks and leans down, pressing a ravenous kiss to his lips. “But I do, Cayde... I _do _love you, too.” 

He sits up fast enough for an automatic wave of synthetic dizziness to come over him and immediately wraps his arms around her in an airtight hug. She lets out a soft ‘_oomph’ _but lets herself be manhandled by him, and giggles when he wraps himself completely around her. 

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers into her hair. “I don’t deserve you, but you have me anyway.” 

“Never leave, Cayde,” Meera says back to him, turning her head just enough to press tender kisses to his cheek. “That’s all I ask of you. Never leave me, Cayde.” 

* * *

The frantic gossip about who it is that Cayde-6, notorious Hunter Vanguard, might be _dating _doesn’t go down over the next weeks. If anything, the longer it festers, the more ridiculous are the theories that Cayde hears in passing. 

According to some, the people he is having a sordid love affair with include the following: 

Ikora and Zavala, all three of them have engaged in some weird sexual deviancy to try and exert power over the other two. Eris Morn, mostly due to the fact that one weird Hunter simply just_ has _to be attracted to another, even _weirder_, Hunter. Amanda Holliday, which is just _ew __no, _he’s known her since she was a kid for crying out loud, and he ain’t one to lust after people that he sees as family. 

Other popular opinions are Lord Shaxx, one or multiple of the faction leaders, and let’s not forget the most ridiculous one of them all, that he is engaged in a star-blazing, forbidden romance with the Speaker. 

Cayde doesn’t know if he should be commending the Guardians and civilians for thinking up all of these ridiculous scenarios, or if he should just start despairing for the next generations if_ this _is the world that Guardians and the Last City is trying to save. 

“Ikora, my most beloved lady!” he greets his favorite Warlock one fine day and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Wouldst thou careth for a bout of fine dining with me this wonderous evening?” 

Somewhere behind him he can hear a muted “_I fucking knew it, pay up_!” as a bout of cheers and groans erupt in the hallway. 

Ikora on the other hand, impeccable Warlock that she is, simply raises an eyebrow over his antics and smirks. “If this is about you starting up a harem with me as well as every other figure of authority here in the Tower, you can take your affections elsewhere, Cayde. I have Guardians to mentor.” 

“Wha—a_ harem_?! Ikora, you wound me!” 

“Not as much as Zavala is going to when he hears about the rumors with you and him.” 

Cayde sputters indignantly. “But I didn’t even start those! The kids did that, not me!” 

“Do you honestly think that our dear Commander is going to care?” Ikora asks, going through her papers. “Because I don’t.” 

“You, Ikora Rey, are a cruel, cruel mistress.” 

“Whatever you say, Cayde,” Ikora sighs, but there’s a smile twitching on her lips. 

Comfortable silence spreads between the two of them as the work day begins, and for once everything seems like it’s going to be a grand day for once without_ too much _shenaniganery. 

But, of course, Cayde simply can’t have nice things, because_ that_ is apparently going against the Vanguard code, or something along those lines. 

“Uh, Master Ikora?” a Warlock asks behind the two of them, and both Vanguard members turn around to look at the poor sod. “Does this mean that we get to call you and the Hunter Vanguard ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ now?” 

Cayde slams his head onto the table with a loud groan. 

* * *

It is nearly two months after Shiro’s last visit when Cayde hears from his favorite scout once more. 

Things have been going well, or at least as well as can be expected with a possible SIVA-laced Fallen army camping out in their backyard, and for once there is minimal paperwork which means that Zavala is happy which means that Cayde is happy. 

All in all, everyone is happier when the Commander is happy. 

Which is, of course, why it can’t last. 

When his handheld begins beeping and screeching like some unholy demon, Cayde can already feel the beginnings of something uncomfortable settling in his stomach. He accepts the incoming call without hesitation when he sees Shiro’s name on the screen. 

“Hunter Vanguard, what’s your situation, Guardian?” 

“_Cayde, it’s Shiro_!” Shiro’s voice is dripping with static, some sort of interference, and Cayde mentally asks Sundance to do what she can to enhance the signal. “_Do you read me_?!” 

He frowns. There is desperation in Shiro’s voice, and the kind of desperation that he hasn’t heard since Taniks... no. _Focus_, Cayde. Worry about that four-armed freak later, not now when there are Guardians, _alive_ ones, out there, risking their lives. 

“What the Hell is going on out there, Shiro?” 

“_It’s the_—fuck!” an explosion echoes in the background, followed by what is probably Shiro getting thrown backwards. 

“Shiro?” 

Alright, real, actual worry is beginning to set in now. With quick, practiced motions, Cayde has the handheld linked to the Vanguard’s main channel and motions for Ikora and Zavala do draw closer, as well as link in their earpieces. 

“It’s the damn Guardian that you sent with me, Cayde! He’s trapped down there, in the SIVA Vault! Saladin is shutting it in. We can’t risk those nanites to be let out of the compound!” 

“What about Guardian Shornell?” Zavala’s voice is tense, and no one would have guessed it if they hadn’t known Zavala for as long as Cayde has, but the big guy is worried too. It’s there in the corners of his eyes and how his lips have thinned. “What was his last known status?” 

“I don’t know, Commander! We lost contact with him a few hours ago when he reached the Vault. When Saladin and I went down there to check on the situation we got a connection established,” Shiro falls silent for a good few seconds before he continues. “Commander, the man was_ screaming_.” 

Something settles into place inside of Zavala. The Commander steps forward as the Titan settles back, and Cayde takes it all in as chaos unfurls around him. 

“Guardian, pull back immediately and coordinate with Lord Saladin to have the Vault sealed as securely as possible until we can supply you with suitable backup.” 

“Zavala, we can’t just leave Shornell out there,” Ikora argues. “Now, more so than ever, is when we need to act quickly and—” 

“We do not know what is out there, Ikora, and until we do, I do not want to endanger more lives than absolutely necessary,” Zavala says. His voice is calm, but beneath it there are just the smallest possible hints of dread, just like Cayde is feeling. “Going in blind will only end in tragedy.” 

“We won’t be going in blind, Zavala! Both Shiro-4 and Lord Saladin will be there, everything will be fine!” 

The two of them descend further into the argument, leaving Cayde to stand there, taking in everything of importance that Shiro is frantically listing over the comm in an attempt to make the situation easier for the Vanguard. 

Traveler above, but he doesn’t deserve him. No one does, Shiro is just too damn good sometimes. 

“Guardian Shornell won’t be coming back unle—” 

“Cayde?” 

He freezes. Completely, utterly freezes when he hears_ that _voice behind him, and Cayde closes his eyes. 

_ Fuck _

Guardian Quill, this is not something that you need concern your—” whatever it is that Zavala says is drowned out by the expression that Cayde sees on Meera’s face when he turns around to look at her. 

Denial. Straight up denial and dread is mixing together into a truly vicious cocktail, and oh, if only he could reach out, take her into his arms and reassure her that everything will be alright. Behind her is Tora, that Warlock of hers, looking just as distraught as she is. 

“Cayde, what’s going on?” Meera asks. Her voice is trembling. Cayde spots how her Warlock grabs her hand and appears to hold on for dear life. “What’s going on with Zalli?” 

“This isn’t something that concerns you, Hunter. The Vanguard has this—” 

“What has happened to my god damn Fireteam?!” she interrupts Zavala without preamble, ignores the outrage that spreads across the Titan’s face. “_Cayde_!” 

He leans against the table, digging his fingers into the material. “Guardian Shornell has gone silent since entering the SIVA Vault. We’ve only just now gotten confirmation that the situation has gotten out of hand, and therefore we are sealing the compounds until sufficient aid can reach the Guardians stationed out there in the Plaguelands.” 

Meera straightens immediately as determination makes her eyes practically glow. “I’m leaving.” 

“Like Hell you are,” Cayde snarls and whips out his hand. It wraps around Meera’s wrist and stops her clear in her tracks. “You are staying here.” 

Meera turns around and stares at him in disbelief. “He is part of my _Fireteam_, Cayde! I can’t just leave him ou—” 

“First off, we can’t afford to lose more Guardians to whatever is inside that damn Vault, Guardian!” Cayde retorts. “So, until we know what we’re dealing with, you are staying_ here_, do you understand me? And second, you are emotionally compromised for this mission given your personal attachment to the Guardian at hand. You are _not _leaving, either of you, do you hear me?” 

She gapes at him. “You can’t be serious.” 

“Deadly.” 

Meera shakes her head in disbelief. There is hurt and anger and confusion twirling around inside those eyes of hers, and Cayde can scarcely believe that it has only been weeks ago since she said those wonderful three small words of hers. 

And still, despite the direct orders from her commanding officer, Cayde still sees the flickers of mutiny that are threatening to overtake her. 

He’s known her for too long, that is the only reason why he doesn’t miss it. 

“Guardian Quill, as of now and until further notice you are relieved of official duty, and is to report to the nearest barracks for the foreseeable future,” Cayde grits out. From the muted whispers and gasps around him, he can tell that _no one _has foreseen him doing this. “_I__mmediately_, Guardian.” 

Meera doesn’t say a word. Her mouth opens and closes as she struggles to get the words out, and in the end it is that Warlock friend of hers, Tora something, that has to drag her out of the Hall of Guardians. 

Cayde barely waits until the two of them are out of sight before he whirls around and buries his fist in the table, cursing when splinters fly everywhere. 

“_Fuck_!” 

* * *

Another Fireteam goes, in the end. 

And not just three seasoned Guardians, oh no. The Vanguard issues a fully decked out raid team to take this whole shitshow down, just like when the Vault of Glass was breached, like when Crota and Oryx were forcibly taken down from their pedestals and shown to be quite susceptible to terrestrial bullets after all. 

The Vanguard stand in silence for the duration of the mission, waits for _something _to be broadcasted back to them and the City, but nothing comes. 

All night they stand there and all night nothing comes. Every now and then there are Guardians that wander in to see if there are any updates, but every time they leave with as little information as when they arrive. 

Cayde hates it. 

Neither Shiro or Saladin has gone anywhere near the Vault once more, both of them asked to stay back in order to ensure that there isn’t a total collapse in command, but even though he’s nowhere _ near _ them, Cayde can almost feel the frustration that the two men exude through their comms and handhelds. 

Fuck, but he _hates _this. 

* * *

The wail that cuts through the Tower when the fireteam returns cuts straight into Cayde’s soul. 

He’s there when they bring in the cloth-covered body of Meera’s Titan, of Zalli Shornell, and he aches to be the one that she turns to, but instead he has to watch as she crumbles against Tora, holding onto his robes for dear life as loud, gut-wrenching sobs tear themselves out of her throat. 

The remains of the Ghost is handed over to the Vanguard, shards of chassis speckled with red, glittering strands, taunting them with their failure. 

Denial, anger, confusion—so many emotions are rolling off of her, and he sees more than one pitying look getting sent Meera’s way from both the team that went in there and got Zalli out, but also the ones who were at the Tower the entire time, the Guardians who _weren’t there_. 

Fuckers. 

But who can blame them? 

Meera’s sobs never subside, if anything they grow louder as she tumbles from grief to denial. 

And oh, but Cayde wishes that he could be there for her. 

* * *

The corpse that they’ve brought back has more similarities with grounded meat than the human body. 

Tears and lashes decorate every single inch of him where bare skin could have been protruding, and even then, the sickly red strings of SIVA has bored itself into him, twisting the corpse almost beyond recognition. Only humane thing about any of this is the terrified expression that he appears to have died with. 

But even despite all of the damages done to the body, it doesn’t stop either Meera or Tora from successfully identifying the mutilated corpse as Zalli Shornell. 

“Yeah, that’s... that’s him,” Tora manages to get out when they’re brought in to properly identify him. The Warlock steps over and runs his fingers across the tattered remains of the Titan’s Mark where the edges of a FWC’s emblem can just barely be recognized beneath all of the dirt and grime. “Idiot always loved stitching his faction emblem on here.” 

Meera just nods. She hasn’t said a single word since they brought him in. 

“Guardian Quill?” 

They need both Guardians’ statements before they can be let out of here. 

Meera appears to be barely holding back tears, but she nods. “Yeah, it—it’s him. It’s Zalli.” 

And that’s when it actually hits him. 

Cayde did this. 

Cayde could have_ stopped _this. 

Fucking Hell, Cayde _wished _for the guy to stay out there forever, didn’t he? 

And he did. 

In some twisted, fucked way, Zalli Shornell really did stay out there in the wilderness forever, and it might very well be the Ahamkara who granted his wish. He’ll never know, no one will, but he feels sick to his stomach. 

He should... yeah, he really should reach out towards Meera, comfort her—for fuck’s sake, she’s just lost one of her oldest friends. 

But, she’s out before Cayde can stop her. 

* * *

“Hey...” 

He finds Meera huddled on the couch in their apartment. She’s sitting with her handheld, scrolling through pictures with one hand while the other one cradles her Ghost to her chest, protectively. 

She doesn’t answer him. Instead she curls further in on himself. 

“He didn’t deserve this, no matter how the two of you parted ways,” Cayde continues talking, even if he gets the distinct feeling that it’s more or less a one-sided conversation. “I’m sorry, Meera.” 

Between the two of them the silence feels cloying and thick, like molasses. Something heavy is settling in the air, something that yanks and claws at the two of them until_ someone _does _something_. 

Eventually she must get sick of the silence, because she is the one to break it first. 

“I could have saved him.” 

“You don’t know that, Meera,” Cayde sighs. “It might very well have been you in his place, and then where would we be? Back at the beginning? Maybe even back at that fucking prison?” 

“And you don’t know either!” she hisses and draws backwards. “I did it the first time, what’s stopping me from stopping SIVA one more time?!” 

“There’s me!” Cayde yells back. He’s breathing hard, like he’s an organic who has just run a fucking marathon. “I ain’t losing you again, Meera, do you hear me?! I can’t go through all of that shit one more time!” 

“I know what I’m doing, Cayde! I’ve fought SIVA before, you_ know _this!” she turns away from him, furious from the looks of it. 

“Yeah, I heard you the first damn time, woman! But you knowing about SIVA beforehand doesn’t change the fact that_ nothing _is as it should be! We don’t know what might come next, Hell, for all that we know the Cabal might very well choose _not_ to invade the Last City for the Traveler’s Light, _but we don’t know_!” Cayde feels pressure behind his optics, nothing more than a programmed phantom ache, but in this moment, he wants nothing more than to just let loose. Instead he gets on his knees in front of her, hands stretched out towards her. “I can’t lose you too, Mee. _Please_.” 

“I never got to speak with him,” she says quietly as the tears begin forming in the corners of her eyes. “I—I didn’t... I—” 

“Shhh,” Cayde reaches out and wraps her in an embrace. He strokes her head in long, repetitive motions. “It’s alright, Mee.” 

“It _isn’t_,” she sobs outright and huddles closer to him. The handheld clatters to the ground. “ Zalli’s gone, Cayde... he’s _gone_.” 

Sometimes Cayde forgets. 

He forgets that she’s never had to see another Guardian truly lost and torn away from the Light, at least no one that she really _ knew _. 

She breaks down in his arms. 

Ugly, gut wrenching sobs echo in the apartment as he holds her, mumbles nonsense to her in an effort to try and calm her down, but nothing works. And he won’t try to hold her back—out of anyone, Cayde knows how it feels to repress grief and the issues that it can lead to. And if he can keep Meera from ever going there, he’ll be thankful. 

It takes some time, but she tires herself out eventually from the crying and the grief still pent up inside of her. They’ll get through it when they do, there is no rush for her to breeze through a mourning period. When she calms down enough to make sense, Cayde takes her to the bedroom and begins readying both of them for bed. 

He undresses her without distractions and gets both of them settled. 

With both of them beneath the covers and Cayde pressing up close to her from behind, everything seems to be calm and collected for once. He listens to her breathing, how it’s still slightly uneven from the crying earlier, but eventually it smooths out. 

Just... peace and quiet for once. 

But, of course, the silence doesn’t persist for long. 

“How old are you? Really?” 

The question hits him out of_ nowhere_. Hell, he wasn’t even certain that she was still _awake_. 

There’s a moment where he scrambles for an answer, anything to tell her in the wake of her question, but as the silence between them stretches out it only appears to make it more and more difficult to find an appropriate answer. 

Cayde ends up letting out a snort instead. “You want the official or the real answer?” 

He watches as Meera turns around to look at him and swallows heavily. 

“Both,” she finally answers, and Cayde’s eyes close as he mentally prepares himself for the shitstorm that will probably be heading straight in his direction. 

The silence drags on. Meera shifts beneath him, and he is made acutely aware of every single inch of skin that presses against his plates. 

“A couple thousand, by now, at least.” 

“Is that the official one?” 

“Fuck no,” he laughs, struck by a sudden surge of bitterness and fastens his eyes somewhere above her eyebrows, refusing to meet her eyes directly. “No, no—that’s the real one. In this timeline, in this outcome, however? Here, I’m probably ‘round a hundred, or something. I dunno, it’s hard to keep track of.” 

“You have Sundance for that, don’t you?” 

“It’s never made sense to keep track, honestly. I mean, would you if you knew that you’d probably just end up at the start again and again?” 

“It’s all a game to you, then? Time, I mean.” Her hand comes up to rest against his cheek. 

“What else could it be? I’m trapped here, stuck in an endless repeat until I complete whatever it is that I’m supposed to get right. At some point time stops having any real meaning.” 

“That’s sad.” 

“That’s _reality_. Thought that you of all people would know that she’s a sad bitch if there’s ever been one.” 

“Excuse me?” 

Meera, not unkindly, shoves him off of her and he allows it without hesitation. She sits up from the bed, her top missing and clad in nothing but a pair of underwear. If the situation had been different, Cayde would have had his gaze locked onto her heaving chest in_ seconds_. 

Instead he raises an eyebrow at her, waits for her to finish what she obviously wants to say. 

“Cayde, what the hell?” 

“What d’you mean, ‘what the hell’? Meera, this has been my life for who even knows how long anymore! I don’t give a fuck ‘bout time anymore, it stopped after I had to watch Andal Brask get gutted several hundred times in a row!” 

She freezes. “What did you say?” 

“No,” Cayde groans and reaches for her, winces when Meera immediately draws back and away from him. “No, listen—kid, I didn’t—” 

“_S__everal hundred times in a row_?” 

Well… this certainly wasn’t what Cayde had thought they would be spending the night doing, that’s for damn sure. 

“Call out your Ghost, Cayde.” 

“What on Earth is that gonna d—” 

“Call out your Ghost_ right fucking now_!” 

Cayde scowls and squares his shoulders. “I realize that you’re used to saving the day and all that shit, Quill, but that does not in any way entitle you to speak that way to a commanding officer.” 

Meera has the fucking gall to _laugh_. “Oh, so now it’s ‘commanding officer’, is it? I suppose, next we’ll both go to Commander Zavala, just as we are now, and tearfully apologize for the serious breach in conduct that the two of us have spent the better part of three years practicing before all of this shit went down?” 

Stars, why did this have to happen_ now_? Why did he have to go and open his stupid, fucking mouth? Why are they doing this _now_, of all possible times? 

“Or am I wrong? Are we just going to dance off into the sunse—" 

“Alright, that’s_ enough_!” his voice echoes within the sparse bedroom, probably wakes up a few of his neighbors too, if he’s unlucky, but this shit stops right here and now. No matter what, Meera abruptly shuts her mouth, even if her face grows red—if it’s from anger or embarrassment Cayde has no fucking idea, and quite frankly, he’s _beyond_ caring at the moment. 

He suppresses a snarl as he reaches out and grabs Meera’s wrist before she can get completely off the bed, hauling her down onto the mattress and looming over her. Immediately she lets out a yelp and instinctively kicks out with her feet, catching him in-between some of his plating but still wincing from colliding sharply with the metal. 

“For the love off—stay fuckin’ _still_, will ya?” 

“Fuck off, Cayde! Get _off _of me!” 

The anger bordering on panic in Meera’s voice is enough for Cayde to automatically freeze where he is, and immediately she wastes no time in pushing him off and away from her. Before Cayde can get a single word past his still-frozen lips she is whirling around his bedroom and picks up every article of her clothing that she can find. She is still naked, except for the set of utilitarian, uniform-issued underwear still wrapped snugly around her ass. 

“Please, Meera, jus—listen, would you just wait a damn minute?” he calls after her as she strides out of his bedroom with her Light materializing her clothes onto her body once more. “H-hey—_Meera_!” 

“I get it, alright?” she says tersely as she stops abruptly there in the middle of his hallway, clutching her bunched-up cloak in her hands, her cheeks still flushed from their earlier fooling around. “I get that you’ve been alone, that you’ve had to suffer through all of this shit so many times that you’ve lost count, and that’s fair—I’m never going to belittle what you have gone through, Cayde—but at least _attempt _to show me the same fucking courtesy.” 

“Meera, would you just fuckin’ listen to me for a damn moment?” 

“No,” she spits viciously as she glares daggers at him. “I won’t ‘just wait a damn moment’ to hear you yell and scream and wallow in your own damn sorrow. Bad things happened to you, I get that, _I __do_. But did you forget for a moment that every fucking time you went back to the beginning, then so did I? I don’t know what happened back there in that fucking prison, and quite frankly I am still thanking every single fucking deity that I can think of for getting out of there. I am more than ready to move on, and you’ve had just as much time as I have to actually _deal _with the fact that _life goes on_, Cayde! You are _more _than this quiet, shivering husk almost afraid of looking at his own fucking shadow.” 

He’s never seen her this upset, _never_. It’s… it’s fucking surreal to think that he would ever have to be on this side of the fence against her, ever. 

So, he frowns and takes a step forward, only to wince when Meera immediately steps back to keep distance between the two of them. “How the hell did you get all that outta me mentionin’ Brask?” 

“So I’m wrong then?” she demands. “You were lying to me when you mentioned all the different times that you’ve apparently done this before?” 

“No, I would never—” 

“Then_ why_?!” 

“Why what?” 

She gapes at him, her eyes wide from disbelief. 

“Tell me you aren’t serious right now,” she whispers. “You can’t be_ fucking serious_!” 

“I—I had to protect you. Meera, thi—this ain’t just some adventure that the two of us can pop out on, just like that! If we get anythin’, and I mean_ anythin_’, wrong here then it’s back to basics again. I had to protect you from from what it does to you!” 

“Oh, and lying about how many times you’ve already done this solves _how_, exactly?” 

“If you didn’t know you’d have done exactly as the first time all of this happened!” 

“That is _bullshit_, Cayde! _BULLSHIT_!” she howls, and by now he can see the tears that are gathering in the corners of her eyes. “When… when you’re done lying to me, I hope you’ll at least consider informing me of your plans.” 

Cayde says nothing as he just stands there, looking at her and feeling as lost as when he woke up on that fucking cliffside, freezing cold and desperate for answers—for a way out of this personal circle of Hell that he’s found himself in. Meera swallows heavily as she too looks at him, probably searching for answers that he has long since buried beneath plates and wires and algorithms upon algorithms. 

Her eyes close and the tears begin trickling down her cheeks as she turns away. “Goodbye, Cayde.” 

The door closes behind her, clicking softly against the frame and leaves the quarters in absolute _silence_. 

He’s left standing there in his doorway, only covered by a pair of halfway-unbuttoned pants, as he watches her leave. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, rubbing a hand across his features as he collapses against the wall. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, as always, is appreciated


	10. intermission (Zalli)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya'll gonna hate me for this

His name is Zackeriah Shorl and from the moment that he is old enough to form coherent thoughts, all that he wants to do when he grows up is become an astronaut. 

His name is Zackeriah Shorl and when he turns eighteen, he joins the army’s space research division, dedicated to search every corner of their galaxy. 

His name is Zackeriah Shorl and he has a secret. 

He is not very brave at all. 

* * *

His name is Zacheriah Shorl and when the Darkness comes for all of them, for the Traveler hanging above Io’s half-finished surface, he gets his family on the Colony ships leaving Earth. He hides amongst the refugees and prays that they will always be together. 

* * *

When the Exodus Green, _Y__ang Liwei_, meets the Darkness out in the middle of space, Zachariah is deep in cryostasis. He never feels the pull and push of gravitational waves, never feels the searing agony that is getting pulled apart as the ship hurtles towards an anomaly—a singularity. 

But when he wakes he is no longer on Earth. He is also alone. His mother, his little brother—both are missing from the ship alongside seven others. 

* * *

He is Zachariah Shorl—he becomes Awoken—he is more—he becomes Zalli Shornell. 

* * *

When Mara asks for people to follow her back through the Singularity, back to the universe that he faintly remembers through a haze tasting of regret and sorrow, Zalli joins her without a sliver of doubt in his mind. 

Here in the Distributary there is nothing for him without his family. Here he hunts and he builds and he chases whatever thing that can take his mind off the fact that he no longer has a family that is truly _his_. 

* * *

The Reef is not perfect, not like the rolling, never ending fields of the Distributary, but still beautiful in its own way. He finds his place in this strange new-old world with no solid ground beneath his feet, except the one that he makes himself, and happily serves his Queen—serves her _plan_. 

For Mara Sov always has a plan. 

* * *

He is Zalli Shornell and when the Reef Wars truly begin, he is one of the first to raise arms in the name of his Queen and the Awoken people. 

He is also the first to die when Ceres is utterly destroyed—nothing but a single casualty amongst _thousands_. 

* * *

His name is Zalli Shornell and he wakes inside of an unknown ship. Above him floats a strange little machine with a blue eye and a bright silver and red chassis around it. 

There is a brief moment where he doesn’t understand, where he is without perfect clarity, but then reality sinks in and he_ panics_. There is a voice in his head telling him to calm down, a soothing voice that reminds him of... huh... 

He can’t remember. 

But he remembers that he has no idea where he actually is, and just like that he falls to the ground. 

Then there is someone else there, someone with bright red hair, glowing, purple eyes—just like his—and blue skin. 

“‘ey there!” the stranger grins. He has an accent that Zalli has never heard before. “Never thought I’d get to see a Resurrection happen right in front o’me, but I ain’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, aye?” 

* * *

The stranger’s name is Tora Solaris, a Guardian of Earth—but Awoken, like him—and he is Zalli’s first friend in this strange unknown-known, old-new universe. 

* * *

His name is Zalli Shornell and he is a Titan. A Striker who finds his place in the world on top of the Walls of the Last City, defending those unable to keep themselves safe from the horrors of this curious world of theirs. 

He is a Guardian. But he doesn’t really know what that means yet. So far, all he has done is trail after Tora when the Warlock traipses off on some harebrained adventure for glorious, glorious loot (his words, not Zalli’s). 

Tora... Tora really,_ really_ likes his loot. It is not something that Zalli can say that he actually understands, but he ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ accordingly whenever the other man brandishes a new weapon or a new piece of armor that he has found somewhere, be it in the ass-end of nowhere on Venus or in the marshes of Old Chicago. 

“Is all of this really necessary?” he asks one day when they are knee-deep in muck. They were supposed to just patrol this region of Old Chicago before reporting back to the Commander in a few days, but they had gotten... well, _sidetracked. _“Don’t you have enough Bonds already?” 

Tora whirls around and stares at him with wide, aghast eyes. “Ex_cuse __you_?! Do you even hear yourself talking right now, kinderguardian?” 

Zalli scowls. “Don’t call me that.” 

“Then don’t say stupid shit like that, idiot,” the Warlock scoffs and turns around once more to see how the Bond looks with the rest of his getup. “Fuckin’ Titans, no sense of _style_.” 

“We do too have a sense of style!” Zalli counters as he drags his muck-smeared self towards the nearest patch of dry land. “We use our Marks! They’re symbolic!” 

“Ass-towels are not stylish, Shornell. You really would have thought that you hanging around me for as long as you have should have given you _some _sort of fashion sense.” 

“Fuck off, bookworm.” 

Tora’s laughter echoes throughout the shattered, derelict buildings. 

* * *

The years bleed together after a while, being immortal does that to you, but Zalli finds his place in the world. 

He has Tora and his Ghost and his Light—he doesn’t need anything else, anyone else. He can keep Tora and his Ghost and his Light safe. That is all that matters. 

But then, suddenly, there is someone else, someone _new_. 

Meera is a Hunter, Tora explains to him one evening when the three of them are sitting in a restaurant, getting to know each other. And Hunters, according to Tora, are fickle little shits who always find some way through even the tightest of doors. So,_ obviously_, she is exactly what they need for all of the various shenanigans that they can get up to. Also, Hunters knows how to find _treasure_. 

Honestly, Zalli is not really seeing what all this new fuss is about. 

The girl sitting across him looks around with wary eyes, a deep green, that seem to take in everything around them all at once. She’s rail-thin, a common trait for those who have only just been rezzed, with pale,_ human_, skin and dark hair that is kept in a frazzled braid. If it wasn’t for the constipated look on her face as she is watching the two of them, she might even be pretty, Zalli thinks. 

But what Tora apparently fails to mention, however, is that he literally just plucked her from the Hangar as she stumbled around looking for Holliday to outfit her with a new, working ship, thinking that she was in need of a good time. 

Zalli frowns. This is something new and unknown, something that he cannot intimidate away with his usual glare. But, he decides, she will do. 

For now. 

After all, it’s not like they’re _keeping her_, right? 

* * *

As a matter of fact, they_ are _keeping her. 

Zalli feels like throttling Tora, even if it won’t do him any good. 

Someone new means more people to protect, means that Zalli will have to keep extra eyes on the group, and he does not_ like that_. 

He_ hates _surprises. 

Even if they have shown themselves to be quite pretty. 

* * *

Meera is an efficient Hunter, to say the least. 

She manages to drag them into all kinds of trouble from slaughtering the Servitor of the House of Devils in the Cosmodrome to bring down Crota in the Hive’s pits in the Hellmouth. 

Zalli is not... quite sure how he feels about any of this. 

She’s grown on him, that’s for sure, and he tolerates her shit that sprouts up from time to time, but he can’t let go of this strange sensation in the back of his head whenever he sees her. She always seems so... sad, for lack of better description. Always, always, always, she is always checking on them whenever they are out in the field, always watching their threes and sixes and nines and twelves, as if she is waiting for something big and ugly to jump out and get them when they all least expect it. 

“You don’t need to worry so much, Mee,” he tells her one evening. They’re out in the Cosmodrome, cleaning up some scatterings of Fallen that have caused a ruckus with the City’s caravans. “We’re big boys, me and Tora. We know what to do if shit goes southwards.” 

She gets this strange look in her eyes, almost like she is a thousand miles away, and then she smiles. But it doesn’t reach her eyes. Zalli starts when she shuffles over and leans against him, her head no more than a slight balance-shift on his shoulder. 

“I don’t deserve you,” she sighs. “Either of you, for clarification.” 

He fights it for a few moments but eventually the smile bubbling beneath the surface struggles to emerge. His arm wraps around her shoulders and pulls her tighter. “We’re a team, Mee. Always is, always will be. Nothing will ever change that._ Ever_.” 

She looks up at him with starlight lighting up her eyes and that is when it strikes him. 

Meera has never been decent to look at, never been pretty. 

She has always been _beautiful_. 

* * *

He thinks that this might be love. That this might turn into something _more_. His Ghost laughs and tells him to keep dreaming. 

* * *

They grow closer. At least, he thinks so. 

She appears to have taken his words to heart, that they are a team, all of them, and thus they have to stick together. He wants to believe that she is letting them take over some of the burdens that she experiences. 

And everything is fine. 

Until it isn’t. 

Until a mission from the Vanguard sends them to Phobos, until they discover just _who _they angered when Crota was slain. 

Until Oryx. 

* * *

He sees her in Cayde’s arms and all that he can do is_ stare_. 

“Uhhh... s-should we jus—?” 

“Right, nothin’ to see here, eh, Zalli?” 

Tora drags him off when Meera locks lips with the Exo, and Zalli can only watch on, mutely, as his entire world_ shatters_. 

* * *

He doesn’t regret what he spits at her. 

Yes, he is angry—fucking_ furious_—but not at her. Not really, no. _ Never her _. 

He’s furious with Cayde, with her fucking _Vanguard, _who is going to get her killed for real at some point, mark his words. 

The way that her lips moved against the Exo’s unfeeling metal has seared itself into his brain and Zalli can barely contain the snarl that threatens to erupt inside of him. 

No, he’s done with this—with all of this. 

* * *

Work without Meera grows lonely rather quickly. 

Tora has taken her side and Zalli distances himself from the Warlock automatically. If even_ he_ can’t see reason, a Guardian far older and wiser than himself, then there truly is something missing in the world. 

But he’s in the right. 

She’ll get killed in the end—Cayde will make sure of it. 

But why, oh_ WHY_, is it that she can’t see it?! 

* * *

Their happiness grows. 

His loath does as well. 

* * *

They have a mission for him, the Vanguard. 

Go with Shiro-4 to a closed region in the Cosmodrome and make sure that the Fallen out there are playing nice. 

It seems easy enough, possibly even something that will net him some much-appreciated approval from the higher ups. From the way that Cayde-6 is glaring daggers at him about as subtly as a Fallen hiding in an open field, some distance might very well just be what is needed, for all parties involved in this whole fuckfest. 

So, of course, he agrees. 

* * *

He never should have gone there. 

* * *

SIVA tears into him, as vicious as the day RASPUTIN gave the nanites their final order. 

He feels how his skin is bubbling away, crawling as the red little strands burrow under his skin, is absorbed into his blood. 

Zalli _screams_. 

He screams for his mother, his brother—for _ Mara_, but Mara is dead and gone and the Reef is in shambles anyway so what is it good for—and he screams for his Fireteam. 

The voice of his Ghost, crying and shrieking as SIVA goes for her too the moment that she materializes, cuts through his own screams. She is panicked, desperate to reach him as he is regarding her. An arm stretches out, shivering and covered in blisters and SIVA strands, and she complies. 

With herculean effort she wrenches herself free from the nanites and floats down into his outstretched palm. 

Her singular blue eye, encased in a silver and red chassis, blinks once, twice... then nothing. 

* * *

Zalli writhes as the nanites overwhelm him, as they tear him to pieces. 

The pain is everything, everyone, everywhere. 

And still, despite the death of his Ghost, despite his failed mission... all that Zalli sees is Meera looking at him with those sad, sad eyes that very first night that they met. 

“I need her to know,” he whispers. “Please... I need her to know... I’m sorry.” 

* * *

The red is everywhere, and on the floor lies a silver and red chassis, shattering around a broken Ghost core. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thoughts are appreciated :)


	11. Meera V

_ Bang _

A bullet casing falls to the floor, clinks against the several others before lying still. 

Meera pulls the trigger and frowns when the sound of an empty magazine greets her. She reaches for her pouch and snags out a few extra clips. With deft movements she loads them into her sidearm, raises it and _fires_. 

Every bullet hits the bullseye. 

That tiny fucking red spot a hundred feet away, and she hits it_ spot on_. 

It's not enough. 

It will _never _be enough. 

_ Bang _

_ Bang _

_ Bang _

_ Bang _

She barely notices when the other Guardians out here on the shooting range begin to leave, how they all keep an eye on her at all times. 

But what she does notice is how the rage inside of her never dies down. It stays exactly where it is inside of her head, building and raging higher and louder until she can barely even hear the gun firing off. 

Something hot falls onto her hand and when she ceases her shooting long enough to notice, she sees something clear pooled on the back of it. Dipping a finger in it she brings it to her tongue and frowns. 

Salt. 

Tears. 

She’s crying? 

“Meera!” 

Tora’s voice makes her turn around almost instinctually, one hand raised to her lips and the other holding a smoking gun. 

“You’re crying,” Tora mumbles as he walks over to her. He fishes out a handkerchief and begins dabbing at her cheeks with gentle, careful movements. More tears replace the tracks, but he keeps at it for a while longer. His hand comes to a halt resting against her cheek and Meera leans into it automatically, sighing. 

“I miss him,” she chokes out and looks down. Somehow, looking into Tora’s eyes feels like admitting something not too unlike guilt. “Stars, but I_ miss him_.” 

“It’ll be okay, Mee,” Tora mumbles. His thumb caresses her cheek as he gives her a somber smile. “You’ll be okay.” 

“It’s not fair!” she spits out. “He shouldn’t have gone there! Zalli should never have gone to that damn place!” 

Tora, bless his soul, never says a single word as she rages and cries against him. His hand moves from her cheek to around her shoulders and Meera halfway collapses against him, clutching at his robes as the gun falls to the ground. The clatter of metal scraping and colliding against tile startles her momentarily before she leans against him again. This close she can see the individual stitches of the embroidery on Tora’s robes, can see the golden thread that forms the eagle symbol of the Warlocks, how every decoration has been made with care and thought. 

Zalli gave him that robe. 

She remembers it, remembers Tora’s squeal when Zalli brought out the package and when it was opened to reveal the sleek material. 

She remembers the Ghost chassis that was given to her by Zalli, silver and blue with the Hunter serpent trailing along. 

She remembers _everything_. 

“It’s not fair!” she cries. 

“I know, Mee...” Tora sighs and holds her just a little bit tighter. “I know.” 

* * *

The Vanguard, Meera has come to find, is utter fucking _bullshit_. 

Zavala has the gall to stop her one evening as the Tower is closing down for the day, acting all high and mighty as he calls her name from the end of the Vanguard’s table. Ikora and Cayde are still by the table, both watching eerily from their respective places. 

“Guardian Quill, a moment, please?” 

Meera stops in her tracks, having just handed over a series of reports to Ikora, and looks over at the Commander. Her eyes make a point of_ not_ looking at Cayde for even a moment. 

“What?” she spits out, gruff in voice and just_ this _side of scathing. 

“I wish to express my condolences regarding the loss of your Fireteam member, Zalli Shornell. As I understand it you were quite clos—” Zavala interrupts himself when the sizzling scent of coiling Void fills the Hall of Guardians. 

“I don’t want your condolences,” Meera says. Her voice is quiet, level, as she looks at him with narrowed eyes. Her right hand is clenched tight enough for her knuckles to be pasty white, even as purple flames seek to lick up her arm. “I don’t want your words.” 

“Quill, easy now,” Cayde warns, hand stretched out towards her, but she doesn’t acknowledge him having even said anything. 

Her focus is on Zavala, on his_ infuriating _face, and the rigid pose he is sporting as he stands there in front of her. 

“You are out of line, Guardian. There is a reason why the use of abilities is prohibited here in the Tower,” Zavala growls. He steps around the table, takes a few steps closer to where Meera stands, but she retreats, keeping the same amount of distance between her and the Commander. “Now, as I was saying—” 

“I don’t want your fucking words, Commander!” Meera snarls. It feels as if the skin on the back of her neck is bristling, like hackles are risen as if on a wild animal. 

For whatever, deeply idiotic, reason, Zavala _keeps going_. “You are grieving. It is perfectly natural to—” 

Meera turns on her heel and marches out with tears burning behind her eyes, ignoring the yells behind her. Bile presses at the back of her throat, threatens to erupt and paint everything in front of her in sick if she stays here in this company. She has no use for Zavala’s words and condolences. They won’t bring back Zalli, won’t_ fix _their Fireteam that is lying in tatters around her. 

Nothing he can say will _ever _make this alright ever again. 

* * *

She can’t stay here anymore. 

The Tower feels_ stifling_. The scent of pity is thick in the air wherever she or Tora goes, and she simply can’t _stand it_. 

So, she can’t... no, _won’t _stay here anymore. 

It is easy enough to avoid the most populated venues as she skulks through the Tower this late in the day. Even easier to figure out Tora’s location with a quick search from her Ghost, and she is heading for the Warlock barracks with determination. 

The halls that the Warlocks inhabit are clean, large and airy, a place where it feels more than comfortable to curl up with a book or two or fifty. Much, _much_ different from the Hunter barracks where everything is full of boardgames, stashes of glimmer and the occasional abandoned loot stash. 

Finding Tora doesn’t take long at all. She can hear his aggressive murmuring from the moment that she steps inside the barracks, and she looks to the middle of the room. There, surrounded by stacks of books and papers sits Tora. There is ink smudged on his cheek and his Ghost is nestled in the mop of red hair on top of his head, while his eyes flit across one page to the next. 

“Tora,” she calls out, quietly. It’s still enough to break Tora’s concentration on whatever it is that he is busy with. 

“Mee?” Tora frowns and stands up from his work station. “How—what’re you doing here?” 

“Came to see you,” Meera says. “You got some time?” 

“Sure, sure.” 

He leads her into one of the adjoining rooms, their Ghosts trailing behind the two of them. 

“So, what’s up?” he leans against the door, looking a tad curious. 

She takes in his somewhat-disheveled appearance, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the ink on his cheeks and forehead. He won’t like this, won’t like it at all, but she can’t _ be _ here right now. Not when Zalli is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, when every single thing in this fucking Tower is constantly reminding her of him and earlier, happier times. 

“I’m leaving.” 

She holds her breath, waits for his reaction. 

Tora blinks. Once, twice. His Ghost hovers awkwardly beside his shoulder. 

“Alright...” he draws the word out, unsure. “So, uh, when are you takin’ off?” 

“You’re not going to stop me?” 

Tora barks a laugh. “What, _stop you_? Meera, have you met yourself? I’d like to see someone try to stop you once you’ve got your mind on something.” 

Meera shuffles her feet, taps the point of her boot against the flooring. “I thought you’d try. Everyone always has before.” 

Tora is quiet for a few drawn out seconds before his shoulders sag slightly. He looks down at the floor. “It’s Zalli, right? You keep seein’ him everywhere.” 

“Yeah,” she nods. The tears are back again now, pressing against the back of her eyes. “It won’t stop, Tora.” 

Tora smiles. It’s a sad, somber smile that speaks of sleepless nights and thick grief. “I get it, Mee. I ain’t stopping you if this is what you need. I won’t like it, but I won’t stop you. I promise.” 

That... that wasn’t what she expected from Tora, not at all. Her Ghost nuzzles against her cheek and Meera absentmindedly pets his chassis. 

“You’re not mad?” her voice is quiet, almost hopeful. 

“Mad? Far from it. If anything, I should do the same, get some distance.” 

“Why don’t you?” 

“Ikora wants me here,” Tora scoffs. “Apparently, I’m ‘in too precarious a mindset to be left alone at this current time’. It’s fucking bullshit, but she’s the Vanguard, so, y’know. She pulled rank and now I’m stuck here.” 

Meera frowns at the mention of the Vanguard. She spots how Tora’s brows meet in a frown as well. 

“Mee?” 

“I don’t... the Vanguard and I aren’t on good terms right now, I think.” 

“Oh stars, what the fuck did you do, Meera?” Tora groans. His head falls back against the door as he drags a hand over his face. 

She shuffles her feet again, bites her lip. “The Commander... he—” 

“Oh, _Christ_.” 

“—Zavala, he, well... he stopped me in the Halls.” 

“Yeah? What’d he do?” 

“Wanted to offer his condolences,” Meera spits the last word as if it is something foul, something disgusting. “As if it would make everything_ better_!” 

Tora groans again. The hand makes another trip down his face, and Meera scowls. “He’s a fucking idiot, Meera, I’m right behind that train of thought, but for fuck’s sake, he’s trying to apologize.” 

“I don’t want his fucking apologies!” 

“And I take it that you told him as much.” 

“So what if I did?” 

“Have you ever heard of insubordination? Stars above, but you keep getting' dangerously close to skirting that damn line again and again.” 

“I don’t _care_. The Vanguard took Zalli from us, and we should just _forgive them_?” 

“I ain’t sayin’ that.” 

“But you’re thinking it,” she snarls, takes a step forward. The Void begins to screech at her inside of her head, roars at her to take_ revenge_, to make sure that her fallen comrade hasn’t died in vein. “What is going to be next? Are we going to just sit down and take every single shitty order or decision that they make without asking any questions?!” 

_ Wouldn’t it be so easy? To just let loose and _scream_? _

_ “Meera Quill_!” Tora thunders. “You need to calm the fuck down. I’m not saying any of the sort!” 

“Then why are you making excuses for them?!” 

“Because they’re all that keeps the fucking City together, you idiot! Without the Vanguard, the City is going to devolve into absolute anarchy between the Factions, the Consensus and the general populace!” 

“The Vanguard got Zalli killed!” 

“He was a Guardian, Meera! Same as us, he knew the risks!” 

She doesn’t have an answer at the ready for_ that one_. Meera stops up, just _looks _up at Tora with the tears brimming in her eyes. 

“He wasn’t supposed to... to _die_. He was _good_. He was good and he was ours and he just wanted to do the right thing!” 

“He loves—_loved _you. He loved both of us, Meera,” Tora slumps against the wall, looking down. “I don’t think you really understand just _how much _he loved you.” 

“I never saw it,” she shakes her head. There are splotches of red scattered on her cheeks. “I always saw you both as always being here,_ alive_. It’s never been like this before.” 

“Before?” Tora’s eyebrow rises near his hairline. “What do you mean, ‘before’?” 

“Oh, never mind me,” Meera gives him a tiny smile, somber. “I’m rambling. I meant I’ve never been alone like this.” 

Tora pushes off from the wall and walks over to her. His giant hands envelop hers, extinguishing the last remains of tiny and blazing Void flames licking at her fingertips. “You are not alone, Meera. You still have your Ghost and me... and Cayde. Can’t forget about him, now can we?” 

Meera stills for a moment, but it’s long enough for Tora to pick up on something because from one moment to the next his eyes go from warm and open to concerned and narrowed. 

The hands wrapped around hers tighten, reassuring her that he is there for her. “Mee?” 

“Cayde and I...” she trails off. The unfinished sentence hangs in the air, souring. 

“What happened?” 

“I-it... we...” 

“Wanna talk ‘bout it?” 

“No,” she manages to get out. She tugs at her hands and Tora lets go without hesitation. “Not now.” 

“Tell me if you need to, alright? I always have time for you.” 

There are too many emotions in the air right now, too much uncertainty inbetween the two of them, and Meera can barely breathe through it. She needs to get out, to be somewhere else that is not the Last City, not the Tower, _not Earth_. 

Somewhere that doesn’t have the stain of Zalli’s death engraved onto every surface. 

She is just... Meera sighs. It’s a weary, drawn out sigh. She is just so _tired_. 

“I’m leaving tonight,” she says out loud and looks at Tora with tears in her eyes. “I can’t stay here.” 

“I understand,” he says, quiet but understanding. “Call me when you settle, yeah?” 

Meera doesn’t nod her head at all, doesn’t agree with him or makes promises. Instead she envelops her friend in a firm embrace and turns her head into his chest. 

“I’ll see you around.” 

She walks out of there mechanically, having barely any sense of her surroundings as she walks from the Tower down to the City below. The long trek is welcome to her, a necessity if she needs to plan what she can and cannot bring with her on this coming journey, or whatever it is that they’re calling this latest escapade of hers. 

People greet her and she automatically waves back, even if she doesn’t even recognize or know them, whilst city streets melt into each other until the Last City is nothing but blurry colors and shouts. 

How she ends up home is a mystery if there’s ever been one, and Meera blinks when she suddenly sees her and Cayde’s front door in front of her. 

“I’m home?” 

“You want to take a moment?” her Ghost asks. He sounds worried, too worried. “I can begin packing things, if you need to take a breather.” 

“No, no—I’m fine, Ghost.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Completely,” she smiles, ignores how the tears still burn behind her eyes, and caresses his chassis. “I’m—I’ll be fine.” 

The door unlocks. 

She steps inside, walks straight to the bedroom and just... just stands there. For several long moments she just takes the time to breathe in the smell of him and her together, of the polish that Cayde uses to keep his plates shiny, of the smell of kinetic ammo that never quite seems to leave the two of them, no matter how rigorous their showers are. 

The sheets are rumpled. A brief glance around the room reveals piles of takeaway strewn around the apartment. She runs her hand over the sheets. He probably hasn’t even thought about making the bed or cleaning the apartment for that matter. How he’s going to survive this is going to be a question for the ages, no doubt. 

But this can’t go on, _she _can’t go on like this. 

So, she begins packing. 

Her stashes of extra ammo are all dragged out from underneath the bed, various scattered pieces of armor that might be needed, might not be, are placed on the sheets. Pulling out, packing down and transmatting everything that she might need becomes a tedious routine before long, as she dives into every nook and cranny that might have something hidden. 

Ghost pops in every now and then when she needs multiple things stashed away at wherever it is that they keep everything packed, but other than that he stays out of the way. 

Everything is fine. She is getting her things done. Soon they’ll be off to the stars instead of her sitting here wallowing in her own grief. 

Until... 

“What are you doing?” 

She stops in the midst of stashing away some extra rations. Tenses. 

“Hey, _Meera_!” 

A firm hand reaches up and turns her around. She automatically fastens her eyes to Cayde’s chest instead of up at his face. 

“Mee,” he whispers and cradles her face in his hands. “Where are you going, sweetheart?” 

“Away,” she murmurs, still averting his gaze. “Out of the City.” 

“Listen, Meera, I want to...” Cayde releases her cheeks and Meera tries to turn away, go back to packing, but he stops her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “That—I _need _to apologize.” 

“It’s alright, Cayde. You don’t need to—” 

“Like Hell I do! What I said that night hurt you, and that shit ain’t right. Don’t pretend that it is! I shouldn’t have lied to you.” 

“You never did,” Meera shakes her head. Tears, fucking traitors that they are, begin trickling down her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have exploded like I did.” 

“Don’t go, Meera,” Cayde begs. His hands return to her cheeks once more, wiping away the tears that are trickling down. “Stay here with me. We can _fix this_.” 

“I’m not... I’m not_ leaving you_, Cayde,” she grits out and pulls away from his grasp. She dares to look up at him and bites her lower lip. “I just—fuck, I can’t stay here.” 

Cayde looks... well, he looks absolutely _devastated_ to put it mildly. His optics are wide open, vulnerable. And she is about to bring the entire house down around him with this. She just _knows it_. 

“What do you mean ‘you can’t stay here’? That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard in years. Of_ course _you can stay here!” 

“I look at the Courtyard and I see my Fireteam, _alive_. I go through the Hall of Guardians and I can’t keep the sound of Zalli laughing out of it. I go to the hangar and—” she cuts herself off. Her hands run through her hair, tangles in the frazzled braid she keeps it in. “I can’t live like this, Cayde,” she chokes out. 

Cayde groans and runs a hand across his face. “For fuck’s sake... Meera, Zalli is dead. It wasn’t fair, I completely get that, but for the love of the Light, you need to move on.” 

“What, like you’ve done with Brask?” 

The words are out before she can stop herself and Meera stiffens. Cayde goes completely quiet and gapes at her. She moves to draw further away, to put some distance between the two of them. 

“What did you just say?” 

“You heard me.” 

His own hands form up into tight fists. “It ain’t the same.” 

“Like Hell it is!” she cries out and turns around, faces him head on. “What do you even want here?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“What. Do. You. Want? Is it that hard to understand?” 

“What does that what I want have to do with anything? You’re not makin’ any fuckin’ sense right now!” 

“Well, in that case, I’ll spell it out for you, since you seem so fucking content to remain ignorant. You’re fucking stagnating, Cayde! I don’t believe for a second that you’re anywhere close to figuring out how to get us home!” 

“Stagnating? Not wanting to find hom—what the Hell does that even _mean_?” 

“I don’t know how you missed this memo, but this isn’t home—this isn’t where we should even be! Home is where the Cabal forced us out of the Last City, where we found each other in the aftermath, instead of this charade that we’re somehow stuck in!” she yells, gesticulating with her arms. 

“In case you forgot, that same home is also where I got my ass shot dead by Sov! Something that hasn’t happened here, I might add!” Cayde roars right back at her. “You’ve said it yourself, Meera. We’re stuck here, for better or for worse! Might as well make the best of it!” 

“And that’s your excuse for not getting any further? If you’d actually _done_ something instead of wallowing in your grief, we would have been home ages ago! Hell, we would have been home several loops ago!” 

“Oh, like you? If all I’ve been doing is wallowing in grief, then what is it that you’re doing, huh?!” 

“Making a fucking difference. Getting out of here and actually _learning _something, unlike _you_!” 

“I’ve already been out there, Meera, and there wasn’t a damn thing to find out in the System! You think that just because a couple’a decades have passed that you’re going to find the next grand treasure just waiting to be collected?” 

“Just fucking _watch __me_!” she snarls. Void coils in her clenched fists, snakes its way up her arms. The sour, cold taste of it drenches the air. 

“You leave and we’re through. Completely.” 

“Ultimatums, Cayde? _Really_?” Meera lets out a bitter, short laugh. “Fuck, and here I thought that you’d actually have something constructive for me here.” 

“You’re too scared of staying here and actually facing the consequences that your actions have wrought, so running away is the easy option, yeah? You’ve never said no to taking the easy route, have you?” 

“Oh, because you’re so fucking holy now? Wow, here I thought that you actually—” 

“You know what, _no_. Fine, if you want to run, then run, Meera. I don’t fucking care any longer. Run from everything, run from pissin’ off your superiors, from your responsibilities, Hell, run away from me, why don’t you?!” 

He steps away and storms out of the bedroom. Meera remains where she is, flinching when she hears the apartment’s door slam harshly a few moments after. A flash of light announces her Ghost’s arrival to the scene. 

“Do you want to...” 

“Stop talking, please,” she whispers and turns around, aggressively stashing whatever she can get her hands on into the rucksack. 

Her Ghost nods and wordlessly begins helping with transmatting the last few things. 

Neither comment on the tears still running down her cheeks. 

* * *

Taking off has never felt this good. 

No one in the hangars questions her as she boards her ship with enough supplies to last her several years out in the field. No one lifts an eyebrow when she purchases enough fuel to probably last her a decade. No one comes to wave goodbye when she finally takes off. 

It’s better this way. 

She can ignore the hot pressure inside of her chest as she flies past Luna, glancing briefly at the wrecked remains of the ISS still frozen in time above the natural satellite as she flies past it. Even from this far up, the Hellmouth with its eerie glow is easy to spot like the gaping pit that it is. 

The pressure inside of her chest doesn’t go away, however. 

Meera lasts all the way past Mars before she begins to feel the cracks begin to break into being, into her mind. And then, when the floodgates finally break open, everything comes pouring out. 

She has never been happier for the fact that her Ghost knows how to take over the automatic steering of her ship as she bends forward, slumped against the steering controls, as deep, wretched sobs wrench their way out of her chest. Her eyes burn from the salt and she makes an ugly rasping noise every time that she tries to breathe through her mouth. 

All in all, Meera is_ miserable_. 

There is an ugly, disgusting thing sitting in her chest, hurting her every breath, but she can’t let go of it. She_ clings _to it with all of her might, because if she releases it now, what will she be? 

Because she did just what Cayde said, didn’t she? 

She just ran away from everything. 

Insubordination against the Commander, the ever-growing problems between her and Cayde, dealing with the fact that Zalli is dead. The list could go on and on and on. 

And she can’t stop running. 

Ghost stops the engines at some point, letting them drift in the middle of space, and hovers in front of her. 

“It’ll be alright, Guardian,” he soothes, or at the very least tries to, as Meera’s sobs echo slightly inside of the enclosed cockpit. “We’ll find a way.” 

Meera sniffles and tries to reign in her crying to a quieter level. 

“D-do you hate me?” she asks, her voice is raspy and wretched. Looking at her Ghost in resignation, she fiddles with a clasp on her jacket. 

“Hate you?” 

“For, y’know, running away.” 

“I am your Ghost. Truthfully, I am not even sure if it is possible for me to actually _hate _you.” 

“Dredgen Yor managed to make his Ghost hate him,” is her counter. “All it takes is a limit.” 

“Well, I have yet to hit mine, and I doubt that you're about to turn around and murder a few dozen villages just because they looked at you funny,” her Ghost huffs and swirls his backfins. “I’m with you, wherever we go.” 

The hope that blossoms in Meera’s eyes is tentative, fragile. 

“Besides,” Ghost continues. “Cayde needs an asskicking. I _knew _he wasn’t good enough for you.” 

Meera’s laughter is wet and choppy, but it is a laugh. 

She hasn’t laughed like that in_ ages_. 

* * *

She sees beautiful and terrible things out there in the System as she searches for answers—as she runs away from home. The stars light her path as she drifts from planet to planet to moon to asteroid, never settling long enough to really _breathe_. 

Oh, and the sights that she _does _see... 

Moons still uncharted, forgotten caves across the system, beautiful creations of the Awoken littered across the outer edges of the System—all of it from a bygone time.

But no Ahamkara.

She crosses through the Reef and enters Jovian space. Jupiter is enormous and luring—beckoning for someone to come closer and figure out its secrets hidden away across its moons. 

Meera almost does it, she almost gives in. 

She recalls Asher Mir, stubbornly clinging to Io as he tries to figure out a way to halt the Vex conversion. Recalls the fervor with which he works. She doesn’t want to end up like him, trapped in a situation that likely will never be resolved. 

She almost gives in to Jupiter’s beckoning call, and if it wasn’t for Asher as well as the insane amounts of radiation, she would have done it, too. 

She has a task in front of her—to find the Ahamkara that somehow has trapped both her and Cayde in this situation and kill it if she has to. That nothing seems to work is a setback that she will have to deal with eventually, but until now no one has tried to stop her so why should she cease her search? 

Because she will kill it. No matter the cost or if the situation escalates to that being the only option left for her to take. 

Here’s to hoping that it won’t take away what little remains of her sanity. 

* * *

Weeks pass. 

They turn into a month—into several months. 

Before she knows it, they’ve been out there for more than a year. 

* * *

_ “Hey Mee, it’s your favorite Warlock! _ _ Gimme _ _ a call once you decide which _ _ asteroid _ _ you’re _ _ gonna _ _ grow old on, yeah? Lots of love and icky kissies from Tora, the most magnificent Awoken ever to grace your inbox!” _

She lets the message play on repeat. It spools back to the beginning and Tora’s voice, slightly grainy from the transmission, once more fills her cockpit. 

“_Hey Mee, it’s your favorite War_—” 

She loses concentration after the first few words, knows the message almost word for word by now, and instead looks out over the floating debris that litters the Reef. 

The two of them have been sitting in an Awoken outpost for the past several days, resupplying on company, because whether she likes it or not, Meera never will be the loner that she so desperately tries to convey that she actually is. 

She craves social interactions, maybe even more so than her Ghost has come to do, and relishes the small conversations she has had with the Awoken stationed out here. 

They are a miniscule part of what remains of the Awoken people. Stranded out here in the Reef on a former military outpost that sees nothing but the occasional Fallen ketch or patrolling Awoken ship once every odd week or so. When Meera and Ghost first arrived, they were most definitely not greeted with anything resembling open arms, but apparently it helps to donate some of your fuel to patrol ships and hand out some of those Light-awful rations that the Tower dishes out. 

The Awoken and Meera aren’t _friends_, per se, but they are not getting kicked out either, so there is that. 

Ghost has come to hate it. 

At this point he hates just about everything that they’re doing out here on the edges of the Sol system. 

“I don’t understand what it is that we’re doing out here, Guardian,” he says one day, or whatever counts as ‘day’ out here. 

They’ve left the outpost by then, having both had enough social interaction for now, and are sitting in between the chunks of rock forming Saturn’s rings. From where their ship is landed, they have a marvelous view of the still-perfect sphere that Oryx and his Dreadnaught left behind. Not far from them orbits Titan with its lost Arcologies, its sea-bound leviathan and its Hive infestation. This far away it is easy to forget the fact that a treasure trove of Golden Age tech and inventions is being ripped apart and rotting away, just sitting there all innocent in Saturn’s orbit. 

“We’re hunting Ahamkara.” 

“The Ahamkara are _gone_, Guardian,” he says forcefully and glares at her. “So far we’ve found nothing, and you refuse to go anywhere near the Prison of Elders which is our only lead so far.” 

“That’s not true,” she glares right back at him. “Uldren is a lead too.” 

“Uldren is gone. From what little we know he’s either out here in the Reef somewhere, getting torn to shreds by Fallen or possibly stuck on Mars for some demented reason. Unless you have something else that you want to tell me?” 

It really shouldn’t be legal for a small floating robot to look this judging. 

“I’m not giving up on this.” 

“And no one is asking you to. But we need to move on if we’re not planning on finding anything out here. The City _needs_ us.” 

“That’s bullshit and you know it. The City has enough Guardians to protect it.” 

“Right now it does, yes. But what about if the Cabal attack? What then, Meera?” 

This version of her Ghost never calls her ‘Meera’ unless he’s well and truly pissed at her. Meera frowns and looks out over the suspended rocks floating by outside. 

“We have no idea if that is going to happen, Ghost. Traveler willing, everything that I experienced originally has been skewered so much that he’s not going to show.” 

“You can’t know that, though,” her Ghost argues. “Do you really want to let such a thing be let up to chance?” 

No one says anything after that for quite a while. 

“I don’t... it was too much back there,” Meera finally says, breaking the silence. There’s a ration sitting in her lap, one of the thousand more stashed away on the ship. The smell of freeze-dried, reheated ragout is thick and cloying in this small of a space. Both of them know that it is going to stick inside the ship for_ days_. “He was everywhere.” 

“What about Cayde?” 

“What _about _Cayde?” 

“You don’t want to talk to him? You two didn’t exactly part on good terms.” 

“That’s being generous,” she snorts and pokes at the food in her lap with her spoon. The small tower of overcooked meat she has been building topples over with the slightest provocation. “We were screaming at each other.” 

“You... did he make you happy, Guardian?” Ghost asks cautiously. He’s hovering in front of her, blinking every now and then with his singular blue eye. “Cayde, did he make you happy?” 

“He did. He _does_,” Meera nods. She presses the tips of her fingers against her forehead and lightly massages the skin there. “I don’t know what happened back there...” 

“Well, you are both very different people,” Ghost tries his damn best to cheer her up, she can see that plain as day, and Meera smiles. “And if you’ve both been through hundreds of loops, it is only natural that you have changed. Sometimes you change for the better, sometimes for the worse. But you’re still you.” 

“I’m not sure that this version of me is the same version that he fell in love with.” 

“I’m not sure that Cayde is the same man _you _fell in love with, either,” Ghost floats over and nuzzles against her cheek. “Guardian, you need to talk to him. We’ve been gone for over a year.” 

“Sixteen months and five days, if you’re counting precisely,” Meera mumbles and swallows a spoonful of ragout. The overly spiced meat is at the same time the most atrocious and the best thing she has tasted in such a long, long time. 

“Counting days, are we?” 

“Oh, shove off,” she turns away from him, looking out at Saturn’s rings instead. 

“You said that we would have to be careful. That the Cabal would come to Earth and the Last City.” 

“It’s not set in stone. We might not be attacked.” 

“You don’t sound sure.” 

“That’s ‘cause I’m not. I’m terrified that they are going to come again. I never want to feel Lightless ever again.” 

“I can’t even_ imagine_ what that feels like,” her Ghost shudders. “I have always felt the Light, from the moment that the Traveler died and released us out into the world. To... not have it seems so... I don’t even know how to explain it.” 

Meera sets the bowl of ragout down on the steering controls. Breathes. Her hand won’t stop shaking. 

“It was cold. So, so very cold. You didn’t know how long the cold would persist and remain, and for some Guardians it remained, even after we got the Light back from Ghaul. They couldn’t deal with it.” 

“What about you?” 

“Me?” Meera looks over at him. “I... it didn’t leave me, no. I had a hard time handling the transition. Both ways, I should add.” 

“Do you think that it will be this way again?” 

“I don’t know. It all depends on whether or not Ghaul drags his Red Legion here.” 

“I hope that it doesn’t have to come to that,” Ghost dives down between her armor and neck and nestles in the bunched-up fabric of her cloak. “Cabal are just so... _eurgh_.” 

He can’t wrinkle his nose, but the noise he makes is so very like that expression that Meera cannot help but let out a short bout of laughter, despite the dour atmosphere they’ve stewed in for so long. 

“Oh, never change, my little Light,” she chuckles and runs a finger across his back fins. “I don’t know what I would do if you did.” 

“Lie down in a ditch and cry, most likely,” is the cheeky comeback that the sassy little shit gives her. 

Laughter fills the cockpit once more. 

* * *

For once, peace seems to be the answer. 

For once, ruin is not waiting around the corner. 

* * *

Of course it could never hold. 

* * *

She is crossing back through the Reef when it happens. 

One moment she is chattering with her Ghost, they are both so excited to go home, finally. To go back to the Last City, see Tora, breathe in the City’s atmosphere, eat the food, drink the beverages. _Live_. 

But then something inside of her_ shatters _and Meera gasps as painful cramps makes her shudder uncontrollably. 

She lets out an earsplitting scream as the realization of what has just happened, of what Ghaul has done, sinks in. Her Ghost wheezes as he struggles to cling to what little Light remains after getting so abruptly cut off, but it isn’t long before he falls into her lap, lifeless and quiet. 

The screaming stops after a while, leaving Meera slumped over against her controls, wheezing for stagnant air as shaking hands grip onto her steering controls. 

Meera gulps down as much air as she possibly can. There are tears falling down her cheeks and a rattling whine forcing its way past her clenched teeth, but she is still conscious. 

She is still _here_. 

“G-Ghost,” she chokes out and looks down at her lap. Her Ghost lies there, unresponsive. “_Ghost_!” 

No answer. 

Not even so much as a flickering blue light to show her that_ some _part of him is still there. 

“N-_no_!” she grits her teeth, holding onto the steering controls hard enough for her knuckles to turn an unhealthy, pasty white. “_NO_!” 

But, this far out in space there are no one around who can hear her scream. 


	12. Cayde VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential trigger warning: strong language used in this one, folks. Specifically the word "retarded"

In the beginning it’s... strange. 

He’s been used to Meera being here for so long that now when she isn’t it’s... quiet. He hates the quiet. Quiet means that he’s left to stew in his own thoughts, that he can’t as easily distract himself with meaningless banter between the two of them. 

People look at him funny when he stalks the halls of the Tower, whispers when they think he can’t hear them, and it’s all about her. 

“_Did the Hunter Vanguard send her away?” _

That’s none of their business. 

_ “Why did the Guardian have to go so suddenly? Do you think it was a mission from the top brass?” _

Again, none of their damn business. 

_ “I wonder what happened between the two of them.” _

None of their fucking_ business_! 

He hates it. 

It ruins everything for him. His mood, his behavior, just everything gets ruined. And all because of a single woman not caring enough about him to stay and try to fix things. 

“Cayde, you can’t let this ruin everything you’ve fought for,” Sundance argues one evening. It’s raining, because of course it is, and it is doing absolutely nothing to improve his mood. “You promised that you would see this through!” 

And he has promised that. 

Time and time again, Cayde has promised that _this time_ it will be different, that this time will be the one where they get all the way to the Prison and find a way around it. 

Somehow a year passes by. 

A year full of nothing but vitriol and anger and resentment. 

He barely speaks with Ikora whenever she asks if something is wrong, he begins marking the months again and again, loses count of where he’s gotten to and starts over. 

His arms and legs are full of small scratches in the metal that makes out his body, but if anyone notices they don’t say anything to him. 

Fuckers. 

Every single one of them. 

“She ain’t answering my messages,” that Warlock of Meera’s says one day. 

It’s evening and the sky is full of heavy, gray and lilac clouds just begging to be released. A brisk wind is blowing from the west, bringing the coolness of autumn with it. Tora has caught him on one of his very few off-days, hiding away in one of the Tower’s gardens. It is the closest that he gets to the Wilds these days when Zavala is watching his every move like a hawk and his flying permit has been blacklisted after one too many escapades trying to get out from behind the walls. 

“Whaddya mean with ‘she ain’t answering’?” Cayde grunts. He pulls out one of the knives hidden in his boot and flips it up and down, assumes a bored expression. “Who’re you talkin’ about, Floof Boy?” 

“First of all, I resent that,” Tora snorts as he drops down beside Cayde. He cradles his Ghost in his hand and absentmindedly strokes its chassis. “And second, I’m talking about Meera, you idiot. It’s been over a year and I haven’t heard a single fucking peep. You had any luck?” 

“Don’t care,” Cayde shakes his head and looks up at the stormy sky, frowning. “She can do her own thing if she wants to. I ain’t stopping her.” 

“You really don’t care?” 

“Should I?” 

“What if she’s been hurt?!” Tora suddenly explodes. He jumps to his feet and glares furiously down at Cayde. The Arc energy that the Warlock favors makes the air taste of ozone and lightning crackles in between his fingers. “What if she is somewhere out there in the system, stuck somewhere that she can’t get out of?! She could be helpless out there!” 

“She ain’t. Your Hunter is many things, but helpless ain’t one of’em,” Cayde counters. “I taught her myself. She’s not dumb enough to get stuck in an impossible situation.” 

“Says you! You the one who taught her to run away from problems too, then?” 

Cayde’s eyes snap from the sky to Tora’s. There is anger inside of him now, building up like a rolling thunderstorm of his own, and he slowly gets to his feet. And despite the fact that the Awoken Warlock towers over him in physical height, in this moment it is Cayde who feels so much bigger than him. 

“What I taught her doesn’t matter. What I feel about her doesn’t matter. What _ does _ matter, Warlock, is that she has disobeyed orders too many times and I can’t keep shielding her from the consequences.” 

“Why, what’d she do?” 

“Insubordination, for one.” 

“And what else?” 

Cayde turns away, scowls. This ain’t his problems, but Cayde’s. The Warlock can fuck off. 

He turns around and walks away, not saying a single word. 

“H-hey, Cayde! VANGUARD!” 

Cayde keeps_ walking_. 

* * *

He goes to bed that night with apathy sitting like a lump in his throat, ignores Sundance’s pleas for him to listen. There isn’t any point. If Meera wants to do her own fucking thing, then he’ll let her. Because he _has _tried to find something that made sense out there, even if he was under the influence of the very creature that they are hunting at the time. 

The next day when he wakes up, Cayde rolls over in his bed, groaning. The spot beside him in the bed is still cold, empty. 

An infernal knocking on his door is what has roused him and he doesn’t bother trying to figure out what the time is. He’s probably late for something and he gives no fucks. 

But what greets him on the other side of the door isn’t an irate Zavala ready to yell in his face about responsibilities and what it means to be a Vanguard of the City. 

What greets him is a frantic Amanda as the Last City is busy erupting into flames, the Red Legion fleet hovers in the sky and their Light is stolen. 

The next day is when Ghaul breaks them. 

And Meera isn’t there. 

* * *

He really thought that it would be easier this time around. 

By the stars above, Cayde feels like the biggest fucking idiot to ever have walked the Earth. 

The Cabal hits the Last City about as subtly as a freight train at top speed, disintegrating the defenses that they have on the Walls, and before Cayde even knows it he is on his knees and struggling to stay conscious as the Light is forcibly taken from him. 

Sundance tries to stay with him, she really does, but she barely manages to float the scant few inches towards him before the last of her own Light leaves her and she falls to the ground, Light- and lifeless. 

Cayde scoops her up and cradles her in his hands, staring at her with wide, unbelieving eyes. 

This can’t be happening. 

Meera isn’t here. The Cabal can’t attack without Meera being here, or can they? The very fact that she isn’t here, that her Warlock hasn’t heard from her in over a year, should be telling enough, but even so, Cayde can’t seem to truly realize that Meera won’t be coming. 

After all, why should she? 

There is a strange, mechanical noise coming from somewhere, and it takes Cayde longer than it probably should to realize that the weird noise is coming from him. A firm hand, Shaxx’s hand, yanks him upwards and Cayde isn’t too proud to admit that without the Titan leading him around he would have probably just sat there until the Cabal would come by and completely finish the job. 

After all, there isn’t much to stick around for, is there? At this point he will gladly welcome the darkness, anything to give him another shot at _fixing this_. 

“Where is the Guardian we sent up to that command ship?!” Ikora’s voice cuts through the droning noise that buzzes inside of his head. 

“I don’t know, we lost contact with Solaris about five minutes ago!” Zavala, strict and lovable blue idiot that he is, snaps right back. 

Lost contact? With Solaris? Cayde frowns and looks back over his shoulder, but Shaxx keeps him from stopping up completely. The hand that is clamped down on his shoulder is firm and won’t be budging anytime soon. 

“Come on, Vanguard, there is no time for stopping now!” the Striker booms behind him, and Cayde nods, albeit slowly. He continues walking in the direction that Shaxx guides him, too out of it to recognize much of what is around him. 

He is more interested in the argument between Ikora and Zavala, wants to know more about what Guardian that they’ve sent up there to Ghaul or whatever it is that his name is. 

But Shaxx takes him away. 

“Hunter Vanguard, it’s time to _go_,” Shaxx’s voice cuts through the buzzing of screams and cries all around. 

Cayde blinks. 

They’re at the hangar. How did they get here without him even noticing a single thing? There are a few ships not shattered by the shrapnel lying everywhere. One of them is Cayde’s. His Queen of Hearts. His prize. 

“But what abou—” 

“The rest of the Vanguard and I will follow when we can. For now, take the civilians still remaining and _get them out_. You and your Hunters know the Wilds better than we do, _use it_.” 

Right. Yes. The Wilds. 

Fuck, he hasn’t been out there in _ages_. 

Cayde looks over Shaxx’s shoulder and out through the hangar gates leading to outside of the City’s walls, can see the hints of treelines ablaze out there in the far distance, and he winces. They won’t stand a chance unless that he can get them somewhere safe. 

But nowhere is safe what with the Cabal around, right? 

Unless... 

Maybe... it might work. He has no idea if it will, and Sundance isn’t here to bounce his idea around until it actually _ does _ make sense, but it will have to do for now. 

“The EDZ,” he nods. Cayde is a damn robot and yet it still feels as if his mouth is bone dry. “I’ll go to the EDZ. They’ll be safe there, I know of a few places.” 

Shaxx nods. With his face being hidden behind the iconic helmet, Cayde has no idea if the man is approving or not, so he’ll have to take a guess at it. 

“Go, then,” Shaxx says and his hand reaches out. He grabs Cayde’s lower arm and squeezes, marks the beginning of a_ promise_. “Be brave, Vanguard.” 

“Be brave, Warlord,” Cayde replies back and squeezes just as hard. And then, just because he can’t help it. “Don’t die on me here, big guy. We ain’t finished bettin’ yet, yeah?” 

“_Hrmph_,” Shaxx snorts and steps back. “Speak for yourself, Exo.” 

His mouth is so dry, why is it so fucking dry? 

Cayde steps back as well and glances over at his ship. Behind it one of the evacuation shuttles is getting filled to the brim with as many civilians as it can carry. He can’t stay, not for much longer if they are to make it out of here safely. 

“I’ll, uh... you’ll get my coordinates as fast as possible. We’ll see each other again, Shaxx.” 

Cayde is shit at goodbyes, always has been, but Shaxx seems to accept his half-assed attempt when he herds the Hunter Vanguard in the direction of the shuttles. 

“Speak with the captain of the shuttle. Now, get to it!” 

To think that he is letting himself be ordered around by a damn Warlord, and a Titan on top of that, but the fact remains that Shaxx has decades upon_ decades _of experience with situations like these, and if anyone knows how to defend a fucking Wall then it’s him. 

The Cabal won’t even know what hit them. 

* * *

They escape. 

It’s too close of a call too many times. 

Their shuttles and ships last until they don’t. Cayde and his troupe are all forced to crash-land on the shores of Old France when they take one too many hits from pursuing enemy ships. They are left standing on windy beaches and their supplies barely enough to last a full week. 

Fifteen people are lost within the first few days. Two of them are Guardians who have barely managed to hold on until then, even with injuries that have shown themselves to be of the mortal variety, and the rest are civilians who barely even understand what is going on. The only thing that all fifteen have in common is that they all succumb to their wounds on the shores of Normandy with sea spray in the air. 

“Vanguard, Sir, are we all going to die?” one of the youngest ask him. 

He’s such a scrawny little thing, only just employed. Cayde was there for his job interview as an aide to the Cryptarchs a few weeks before this whole debacle, knows that his name is Patrick Fergusson and that he just _loves_ his two cats. 

Cayde smiles. It’s a strained one that can barely hold itself together. “Of course we ain’t gonna die. I know this place like the back of my hand, Fergusson, so there’s no reason to worry. I’ll get us to safety.” 

“What about the Commander and Master Ikora? Are they safe?” 

“I haven’t heard from them since the Cabal kicked in our front yard gate,” Cayde shakes his heard. “But in this case, I’d count no news as good news. Until we’ve heard different, they ain’t gone. My Fireteam is strong.” 

He hopes that they are, at least. There is no telling how they are going to handle the loss of their Light, but he knows roughly what is going to happen from here on out. Only difference this time being that he ain’t going nowhere. Fuck Nessus and Failsafe and whatever retarded Vex Mind that is currently converting the centaur. He has a damn job to do and there ain’t a damn thing that’ll tear him away from protecting these people. 

“We go east!” he yells over the howling wind and herds the survivors together. He’s done this before, escort missions and such back when he was a younger Guardian and still had Shiro and Andal and Lush. Damn, he could use Shiro and his tracking skills right about now. “Stay together!” 

The Fallen have the run of most of Europe with only the odd settlement here and there remaining untouched by the scavengers. If they don’t run into any of them it’ll be a damn miracle, but he’s going to try anyway. All of them just need to get to the Farm hidden somewhere in the middle of this damn shithole and from then on, he can begin fixing everything. 

Here’s to hoping that they’ll get there relatively unscathed. 

* * *

Big surprise. 

They don’t. 

* * *

It takes more than two months getting from Normandy to the ruins of Strasbourg. 

Cayde’s initial count of 462 refugees, twenty of those being Lightless Guardians, are more than halved on the trek across western Europe. By the time that they reach the edges of the old city he has 206 civilians and 18 Guardians, but Cayde keeps them going to the best of his abilities. He scrounges for food wherever he goes, finally puts his track and hunting skills to the test, and steers them in what he hopes is the right direction. 

And finally getting to Strasbourg seems to be a turn in the right direction. 

What once was a major cultural melting pot back during the Golden Age is now a ravaged carcass left to time with craters from collapsed ground and buildings from a bygone age. 

Towering above the old cityscape they see the ruins of an old cathedral, still somewhat intact with the most damage being the broken mosaics of stained glass in the windows and a long since rotted-away door. As he walks through the entry, there is a brief moment where all Cayde can think of is Devrim Kay sitting in his little cubby hole in the very top of Trostland’s church. He thinks of the heavy smell of tea always lingering up there, how it mixes with the ammunition for his sniper, and he thinks of the man who might or might not even be alive in this run. 

Stars above, but he hopes that he is. 

“Get going on barricading that door!” he calls out to the people closest to him. There are still stragglers out in the open and he can’t help but feel slightly stressed over the fact that they’re out there, even if there are weapons enough to protect them. “I’ll scout out the rest.” 

“You need someone else up there with you?” one of the Lightless ask him. It’s one of his Hunters, looking gaunt and haunted as their eyes flicker from one spot to the next, never resting. 

“It’ll be fine,” Cayde grunts and squeezes their shoulder. He tries to sound as reassuringly as possible, but he probably doesn’t really succeed if the Guardian’s doubtful expression is anything to go by. “_Relax._ I’ll scout out everything and be back before you know it. Go take care of these people, it’s been a while since we’ve felt safe, any of us.” 

“As you say, Vanguard.” 

Cayde pats their shoulder and sends the Guardian back towards the entrance. He looks over his shoulder and sees the influx of refugees. Some of them are looking hopeful, while others still have that air of apprehension over them that hasn’t left at all since the attack on the City. 

How are they going to come back from this? 

He glances down at the pouch in his belt and caresses it. Sundance’s inactive shell can barely be felt through the thick, treated leather. 

_ Oh, ‘Dance,_ he thinks and sighs. _What are we going to do? _

Outside, the rain begins to drizzle. 

* * *

Crawling up through the Cathedral is an experience, to say the least. 

Despite the heavy neglect and decrepit state of the building itself, Cayde somehow manages to twist and turn his way all the way up to the very top. 

The view that meets him up there is nothing short of wondrous. He can see out over the abandoned city, can see what remains of old buildings out there in the far distance, even if the mood of it all is somewhat dimmed by the fact that the light drizzle from before has now grown to be a full-blown downpour. 

The weather sucks. 

“She’d like this, I think,” he mumbles and caresses Sundance’s pouch again. “Meera, of course. She always loved it when it rained.” 

Sundance doesn’t answer, can’t answer. Instead, a distant rumble answer, and Cayde groans. 

“Fuck me, of course it’s going to be a thunderstorm too, ‘cause why not, right?” 

No one answers. Yeah, he probably shouldn’t get his hopes up for that anytime soon. 

“Just need to get to the damn farm and get my hands on the Shard, yeah? How hard can that be?” 

He has barely gotten the words out before a shot goes off down below. Cayde starts and immediately drops down behind the rusting railing encircling the tower, one hand on his Ace of Spades and the other shielding Sundance’s pouch. Even though he is several hundred feet up in the air he can still hear the terrified screams coming from inside of the cathedral, but in this damn weather he can barely see more than ten feet ahead. 

Fucking weather. 

He practically falls down the steps in his hurry to get down to the ground once more. Every now and then he hears the occasional shot followed by cries. Probably the civilians if he has to take a wild guess. Then, a groan comes from the collapsed wooden pillar he is squeezing past and Cayde barely has a moment to realize what is going to happen before the floor disappears beneath his feet and he is sent flying through the air. 

It feels like an eternity while, in reality, it is probably nothing more than a few seconds at most, but he falls to the ground and is almost immediately borrowed by soggy, mildewed debris. Something snaps in his leg the very moment that he collides with the ground and Cayde lets out an agonized roar as synthetic nerves flare up with warning signals and internal alarms go off. 

Someone rushes to his side and holds away the support beams to the best of their abilities while others drag him out, pulling on his leg in the process, and Cayde lets out a string of curses as he struggles. 

“Cayde, for fuck’s sake, you said you’d be _fine_!” the Hunter from before snaps as they get him propped up against the brick wall. They begin patting him down for injuries and Cayde automatically retracts his leg with a hiss when they accidentally touch the injury. “Oh, fuck.” 

“How bad can it be?” 

“Try barely having a leg left if it weren’t for the pressure vents already installed!” 

“Oh,” Cayde opens his eyes and winces. His vision is swimming in front of his eyes and for a moment it seems like there are a few identical Guardians in front of him instead of just the one. “That’s bad, right?”

Another shot goes off and the shrieks continue. 

“Yeah, that’s bad,” the Guardian nods. They look towards the entry. “Stay here. I’ll be back.” 

“Wha—_wait_! You can’t just _leave _me here!” Cayde cries out but the Hunter disappears into the horde of people huddling. “Asshole...” 

Pain fizzles all over his lower half, especially around his right leg and in the small of his back. A technical masterpiece his body may be, but by the Traveler, right now everything just _fucking hurts_. 

“Fucking raiders!” someone young—Fergusson, maybe?—cries out before a volley of shots are let out from whatever weapon the idiot is using. 

_ What I wouldn’t give for Zavala to save our ass right now. Or Ikora, for that matter, _Cayde groans inwardly and rests his head against the crumbly wall behind him. He gratefully accepts an extended hand that helps him up from the ground, but when he looks down at himself, he stiffens. 

There is oil leaking through several spots on his armored pants, for one thing. The next is that he looks more like he has just been put through a meatgrinder, if a meatgrinder could scrape hardened titanium, that is. His pants are ripped to shreds and have more resemblance with a skinned animal rather than treated fabric. 

All in all, he looks like shit. 

He feels like it, too. 

“Alright, what in the name of the Traveler is happening out there?!” Cayde roars as he struggles to remain upright. Carefully, focusing solely on placing one foot in front of the other, despite the pain, he moves through the mass of civilians and Guardians all pointing whatever weapon they have at the shot-to-hell entrance. 

“Raiders!” one of the technicians from the Tower cries out. She is huddling together with some of the younger people that they have in the group. “Oh God, we’re going to die, aren’t we?” 

“No one’s dying,” Cayde snaps. He pushes one of the Guardians near the front to the side and hobbles forward. His leg feels like it’s on _fire_. “Now, will everyone just calm the Hell down and stop shooting at everything that moves?” 

“What if they’re hostile?” 

“Did they _appear _hostile?” 

“Well... no, but who knows!” 

“Oh for fuck’s—” Cayde interrupts himself and drags an oil-splattered hand across his face. “Someone get me a white cloth.” 

“A—a what?” 

“A white cloth,” he grumbles. “Or a flag or—fuck, just something to wave around with and signal that we don’t mean any harm. I’ll guess that they only began shooting after someone else shot at them, right?” 

Some of them have the decency to at least look ashamed. Others begin glancing towards the entrance, now barricaded with a couple of overturned pews, as well as a table they must have found somewhere inside of the cathedral. 

Muttering even more beneath his breath, Cayde drags himself over to the entrance of the cathedral. On his way someone sticks a piece of white fabric, looking like it has been ripped from a shirt, into his hands and he sticks it up over the edge of the pews, waving it back and forth. 

“_OI_!” he calls out. “You guys out there human?” 

For what feels like the longest ten seconds he has ever experienced, Cayde waits with baited breath. Chances are that this ain’t humans that they’ve stumbled across, but instead Fallen, or even Hive if they’re real unlucky. Right now, he’s mostly hoping on Fallen, if he really _has _to choose someone. If they’re Fallen, he won’t feel guilty about shooting even a single one of them. 

But ten seconds pass before he finally hears something. 

“Give me one good reason why I should let trespassers go free after you open fire on us, unprovoked!” 

Cayde scowls and spits a glob of oil onto the paved stone floor. Someone is going to get such a fucking tongue lashing if they ever get out of this alive. 

“You the leader?” he calls back. 

“Might be. Who’s asking?” 

Alright, he_ knows _that he knows the person that voice belongs to, but the name escapes him in the moment and it is so fucking annoying. He peeks over the edge of the pews. Out there on the plaza in front of the cathedral there are several overturned cars now, as well as a few bullet holes scattered across the pavement. They're all slick from the rain pouring down.

“Someone who really wants to _not _have over two hundred people die just because of a misunderstanding.” 

A bout of loud, feminine, laughter echoes across the plaza. Something moves on the other side of one of the overthrown cars, something that gives him just a hint of purplish lilac, and Cayde really has to stop himself from running straight ahead with open arms because it’s Suraya Hawthorne who comes around the corner, sans bird, with her trusty sniper ready to shoot. 

“Where are you from?” she calls out, scowling. 

“The Last City! We’ve got Guardians and civilians in here, just looking for refuge, nothin’ else!” 

“Well, what do you know, actual Guardians!” Suraya now grins as she cautiously approaches, but even so there is still a strained look hiding away in the corners of her eyes and how her lips are pressed tight against each other. 

There are a few more fighters lined up behind her, all of them grim and grizzled and looking more than ready to pelt every single one of Cayde and his group full of lead, if necessary. 

“In the flesh!” Cayde pokes his head over the makeshift barricade and grins. “Or, well...” 

“They joke too, apparently,” Hawthorne smirks and cocks her hip to the side. The downpour slickens everything, makes everything just a little bit hazy. Having enhanced vision as an Exo does absolutely _ nothing _. “Fancy meeting you people out here.” 

“Well, y’know, the Cabal kind of blew up our home, so...” 

“I heard,” she nods, sadness flashing across her face. “I’m sorry.” 

“Ain’t your fault. Now, uh, you going to lower those weapons, or are we going to keep up the war?” 

“We won’t fire if you won’t,” she says and makes a gesture. Around her, the fighters lower their guns, albeit slowly. “What are you doing out here?” 

“Looking for shelter. You know of a place?” 

“Might do, hotshot,” she nods. “And I think you might just fit in there, actually.” 

“Wow, I can feel your acknowledgement from over here,” Cayde snorts before he turns around and motions for his own people. “Everything’s clear. Drop the weapons.” 

“But, Vanguard, what abou—” 

“I said, ‘drop the damn weapons’. They’re not shootin’ at us no more, Fergusson, so let’s play nice with the new kids, a’right?” 

Fergusson flushes a deep red on both ears but he does as Cayde says and lowers the damn gun. 

_ Thank you kindly _

_ “ _How many you got in there?” 

“‘Round two hundred. A couple’a Guardians too.” 

“I think we’ve hit the jackpot, guys,” Suraya calls out to her own group and a few positive cheers erupt. “Maybe this whole shitstorm might just give us something positive after all.” 

“Wouldn’t that just be nice. I don’t remember the last time we had something resemblin’ good luck,” Cayde calls back. He doesn’t wait for Suraya’s reply as he instead begins to round up the people under his care. 

They get the pews away from the entry and Cayde gets himself outside on the steps, leaning against Fergusson when his leg threatens to give out. The civilians are all escorted outside by the Guardians, all of them looking more than a little scared at the newcomers. 

“Maybe you should get that looked at,” Suraya comments from the bottom of the steps. “Shouldn’t you be able to heal that right up?” 

“Yeah, I should. If I had the Light,” Cayde snorts and looks down at his leg. It feels like it’s been shot to Hell, even if all that he actually did was fall on it. “Bit short on it at the moment, though.” 

“Hmm, might have something that could help with that,” Suraya comments and crouches down in front of him. “May I?” 

“By all means,” Cayde extends the leg and grips Fergusson’s shoulder tighter as Suraya begins gently pressing and feeling alongside his leg. 

“Looks like your couplings are screwed.” 

“Yeah, well, I could’a told you that,” he grouches. 

“You could have fixed it too, then?” 

“Uh... probably not right away, no.” 

“Luckily, I can,” she winks up at him and motions for him and Fergusson to step aside for a moment. She walks over to one of her own fighters and talks with him for a moment. Cayde can’t hear what it is that they’re talking about, but he recognizes the tools that the man hands over. 

“Where’d you get your dainty hands on that stuff?” he asks once she returns and kneels down in front of him. “Exo-designed repair tools are _expensive_.” 

“It helps to have contacts here and there,” she comments offhandedly as she peels away the ruined scraps of armored pant-leg and begins the salvage job. “That white fabric of yours durable?” 

“Should be, why?” 

“I’ll need to wrap something around here in order to keep it stable, at least until we can get somewhere with spare parts for your leg. What did you do, anyway?” 

“Fell through the floor inside the cathedral.” 

She looks up at him with wide eyes. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You heard me.” 

She blinks for a few moments before snorting and returning to her patch job with his leg. “Being a Guardians looks like it isn’t completely without its perks, if you survived falling from up there.” 

“Don’t it just.” 

_ Alright, down boy. There’s a time and a place for flirting, and _ _ sittin _ _ ’ here on the steps of a ruined church in the ass-end of Europe is _not_ it _

Sometimes, he really hates his consciousness. 

“I, ah, didn’t catch your name earlier.” 

Nice save, Cayde—no, really. Super nice save, you dashing scoundrel. 

“That’s because I didn’t give it,” she answers, cheekily. “Name’s Suraya Hawthorne. I’m the leader of this shindig.” 

“Cayde-6. Hunter Vanguard,” he says and shakes her hand. Damn, that woman has a firm handshake. “Good to meet you, Ms. Hawthorne.” 

Alright, _ow_. 

“Lose the ‘Ms’ and we’ll be just fine, Hunter Vanguard,” Suraya smirks at him. She has tightened the grip around his leg and pain begins radiating from it once more. “We clear?” 

“Crystal.” 

* * *

The Farm looks like itself. 

Small, cozy and completely overshadowed by the giant ass shard of the Traveler lying about five kilometers to the south, spewing lightning and causing storms like it is no one’s business but its own. 

Such a charming place._ Really_. 

And it _is _a pretty busy place, as well. People weave in and out between each other as weapons are inspected, cleaned and handed over to those patrolling the perimeter and attempts at communication are being created under a wide canopy where rain and muck doesn’t have as easy a time getting to the technology. 

Suraya has taken her old station on the raised platform inside the barn, now with that bird of hers sitting on her shoulder, and for all intents and purposes he can easily see her as a Guardian in the Tower, drawing people in with her Clan ideas and whatnot. 

Traveler above, how are they going to do this? 

“Hey, Vanguard!” 

He looks up, raising a hand in greeting when he spots Suraya smiling down at him. 

“Hawthorne! Somethin’ wrong?” 

“Get up here, I want a word.” 

Well, he goes. 

Can’t leave a lady waiting, now can he? 

Trudging up the stairs he nods a greeting to the workers milling about inside of the barn, busy at work on one of the starships that they have managed to find somewhat intact. Whoever gets to fly around in that thing once they’re done will be one lucky bastard. 

Not that Cayde is jealous or anything, perish the thought. 

It’s not too far off evening by this point. The sun is slowly beginning to set and the cold is setting in for the night. Above them the sky is a brilliant orange that slowly settles into mottled lilac and dark blue. He crests the stairs and takes a moment to just... take in everything around him. All around there is the quiet chitchat of friends and colleagues getting the last few things done for the day before turning in, and for a moment it reminds him so very much of the Tower. 

A lump is stuck in his throat, makes it difficult to swallow proper. 

He turns to Suraya and smiles in greeting. The sun is directly behind her, paints a halo of bright orange around her from behind. 

“You wanted to talk?” 

She fusses with her bird as she nods, slowly. 

“We’ve almost got communications set up. Soon enough, we’ll be flooded with refugees running from the Cabal and I wanted to know if you knew of any places where the Guardians that survived the initial attack might have fled to?” 

“Oh.” 

That... certainly wasn’t something that he had counted on. 

“Well,” he scratches at the base of his horn. “There’s Fellwinter Peak. Last I heard, the Iron Lords were getting that place set up after the Order was restored here recently. Other than that... uh, the Vestian Outpost, out in the Reef.” 

“Nowhere else?” Suraya looks at him intensely. “You’re absolutely sure?” 

“Yeah, why the interest?” 

She turns away from him and scowls. Her bird chirps and hops closer to her, nudging at her hand for pets. 

“The Cabal took something from all of us,” she says quietly. “For you Guardians it was the Light, and for me? Well...” 

Her silence says it all. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cayde murmurs, low enough so that they won’t be overheard. Somehow, Suraya doesn’t really strike him as a woman who would appreciate potential shows of weakness to be a public affair. “Who were they?” 

“He was a scout, one of my best. An Exo, believe it or not.” 

“Really?” 

_ Well, color me impressed... _

“Yeah... Acer was... he was something special.” 

Exo can’t sweat but, in this moment right here and now, it feels as if something ice cold just soaked through the clothes on his back. 

“Acer?” 

“Mhmm,” Suraya nods, oblivious to the dread that is beginning to unfurl inside of Cayde’s mind. “Acer-15.” 

Wordlessly Cayde pushes off the railing and leaves, not heeding a single word that Suraya calls after him as he retreats. 

He can’t do this. Not now, please not now. 

Why did he have to be here as well? 

Why can’t he just leave Cayde _be_?! 

His mind has no answer as Sundance has no answer as the Traveler has no answer. 

Why can’t something just be alright for once? 

* * *

Acer-15 is never mentioned again between Suraya and himself, and Cayde is perfectly content with that being the case. 

He busies himself with work over the next few months. Helps out with the refugees that keep coming in, gets a proper patrol system set up because the one that the people had come up with themselves was pretty much a disaster just waiting to explode, in his own humble opinion. 

But he stays away from the Dead Zone. 

He remembers seeing the recordings of the place that Meera brought back way back when. He remembers how the trees would twist and turn, how Meera had described the smell of the place as rotten and sickly sweet. 

Logically, he knows that the only chance he has of Sundance coming back to him might come from in there, might very well come from the Shard, but at the same time, there is a reason why no natural life grows around it anymore. 

The Shard is corrupted. The Light that it might give him won’t be right. 

But he misses her. He misses her so very much. 

“You might have a chance to get your Light back in there,” Suraya notes one evening as the two of them watch the Farm slowly settle down. 

It’s become somewhat of a habit for the two of them, sitting there together with a glass of something strong, as they watch the place calm down and go to sleep. It’s reminiscent of days he spent with Shiro and Andal back when the world was so much less complicated. At first, he was apprehensive, fearful that she might bring up the ones that she lost in the attack again, but Suraya keeps her troubles out of it, just like he does. It’s just the two of them, two friends enjoying some booze to relax. 

He could get used to this. 

“Hmm?” 

“The Shard,” Suraya says and turns halfway to look at him. “You could go to it, right? Who knows what’ll happen?” 

“I’ll be skewered by Fallen, most likely,” Cayde snorts. He leans down on the floorboards and looks up at the starry sky. “With my leg being as fucked as it is there’s no telling how far I’d get before something would happen.” 

“What if I went with you in there?” 

“_Absolutely __not_,” Cayde is up from the floorboards in an instant. “Are you insane?” 

“I hadn’t considered that, thank you for pointing that one out, Mr. Vanguard,” Suraya’s retort drips of sarcasm. “Is that really such a bad thing?” 

“All due respect to you and your little group of freedom fighters, Hawthorne, but you’re not a Guardian. You’re not used to hordes of enemies swarming you. We are, we have trained for just such situations.” 

“So why won’t you go?” 

Cayde turns away from her, scowling. “It’s not that easy. Trust me, I’d be out there in a heartbeat if it was.” 

“Wanna explain?” 

It’s a fair question, he’ll have to give her that. 

“It’s, ah...” Cayde falters for a moment as he actually has to take a moment and _ think _ about what information he can pass on to her. “_Eurgh, _I dunno, it’s just... not easy to explain either, I guess.” 

“Sucks,” Suraya muses. She takes a swig of the brandy they’ve been sharing and smacks her lips when putting down the bottle. 

“Yu-_ p_,” Cayde pops the ‘p’. He keeps his eyes looking straight ahead, but even so he can’t quite stop them from drifting in Suraya’s direction. In this light she looks... well, _different_. She is still wild and harsh, conditioned to do whatever it takes to survive out here in the Wilds, but her eyes are softer. At least they are whenever she talks with him. 

Traveler’s crack, he hopes it isn’t because of him being an Exo. 

“Hey, Hawthorne, I was think—” 

“Suraya.” 

“Hm?” Cayde frowns. 

“You can call me Suraya, y’know. One would think that is what friends do, right?” 

“Y-yeah, they do.” 

“Then Suraya it is,” she smiles at him, warmly, but even no Cayde can’t help but feel a burst of icy cold settle in his stomach. 

“Only if you call me Cayde,” he hears himself say, almost automatically. 

God fucking damnit. 

* * *

It was inevitable at some point, but even so, Cayde still dreads it. 

He runs out of things to do. 

Not having anything to do means that he is left to his own devices which means that he starts thinking and when he starts_ thinking_... well, no one wants to know what sort of mischief that he can get up to all on his own. 

But he needs something productive to do before someone decides to throw him into the lake, and so he begins tinkering. 

It’s a productive hobby, leave him alone! 

Most of the things that he begins to fiddle around with are quite innocent, honestly. He helps out with 

“We’ll need some way to leave and enter the Farm’s area, undetected,” one of the scouts complain one evening. Cayde is only passing by completely by chance when he overhears them, and immediately stops up. The scouts are sitting together around a fire, freshly arrived from a week-long patrol and tired to the bone. “The Cabal have begun closing in around Europe for the past few weeks now. It won’t be long until they figure out where we’re coming from.” 

Now, _there’s _an idea. 

Stealth tech is valuable, no matter the situation one might find themselves in, and in this case, there are several hundred lives at risk if the Farm should be found by the Cabal. If he could replicate the strands of code that had been used to fashion his own cloaking device way back when and then _amplify _it... yeah, that could probably work pretty well. Potentially, they would have the ability to remain completely invisible to even the brainiest Cabal, if everything works as intended, of course. 

There is just _one _teeny tiny problem. There ain’t nothing left of the code he used to have. 

_ Eurgh _

He’ll have to visit RASPUTIN_ . _

* * *

It’s a nice day, it really is. 

Such a pity that he’ll have to ruin it for both himself and Hawthorne. 

“I’ll have to leave for a few days, Suraya.” 

“Oh? Where to?” she looks up from the scribbled reports that she is going through, nursing a cup of something steaming. 

“Uh, Old Russia?” 

Cayde has the dubious honor of being the one to stand directly in front of Hawthorne when _ that _ particular bomb is dropped on her, and thusly he is also the one who gets sprayed from top to bottom by the thin disaster fluid that they call ‘coffee’ around here. 

“Wha—hey, hey, hey! Watch the cloak, would ya?” he sniffs and draws back, nervously patting down Andal’s cloak for any wet spots. “This thing is older than the last three generations in your family combined!” 

“_Old Russia_?!” Suraya gapes at him. “Do you actually realize how far away that is from here, Cayde?” 

“A bit longer than a few days, probably.” 

“Try several_ weeks_.” 

“Not if I get to test try to that star ship you salvaged.” 

The look on her face goes from incredulous to angry to this strange icy calm that reminds him just a bit of how Zavala usually looks right before an argument. “Absolutely not.” 

“Absolutely _yes_.” 

“What are you even going to do out there, if I may ask? There’s literally_ nothing_.” 

“See, that’s what you think!” 

“Then please, oh great one, care to explain to this mere human why you’ve decided to embark on a harebrained scheme?” 

“First of all, it’s not a ‘harebrained scheme’,” Cayde sniffs. “And second, I’ve found a way to keep the Farm safe.” 

“What?” Suraya frowns, she's just the slightest bit intrigued. Cayde knows how to read that shit. “Explain.” 

“I overheard some of the scouts talking here yesterday, right? About how the Cabal have begun entering Europe and everything.” he gestures for her to come closer and wraps an arm around her shoulder, drawing her in. “What if we were cloaked?” 

“Cloaked? What, like with stealth tech?” 

“_Exactly_!” Cayde can feel the giddiness begin to bubble up inside of him. “You see, if I can get my hands on some of my own stash, we might just be able to cloak this entire place.” 

“And that stash of yours is in Old Russia?” 

“Yup.” 

Suraya looks at him, no doubt attempting to scrutinize his reasoning. “And you can’t figure out some other alternative.” 

“Well, the stuff I’m planning on getting is Golden Age stuff, very nifty.” 

“Reliable?” 

“Like a brick shithouse.” 

“Charming image,” she comments, dryly, then she turns serious. “You have a week. I want you back in seven days top.” 

“Alright,” he agrees instantly. _Anything _to get out of here. _Anything_ to get some distance from her. “Doable.” 

“You better pray that it actually is.” 

He smiles that smile of his that always works with the ladies, no matter how frosty they might be, and mentally pumps a fist when he sees the wavering fondness bloom inside of Suraya’s eyes. 

Yup, he’s still got it. 

* * *

So, the _Wanderwing_ might be a bit on the old side, and the thrusters don’t really sound all that reliable, but the technician who has put in hundreds of hours on her swears by his family’s name that she’ll fly. 

And she does. 

To sweeten the deal further, they have even built in a communication setup into the ship itself that can manage several different channels—and with some twiddling inside of the cockpit Cayde manages to find his way into one of the old channels, one that hasn’t been used since he still ran with Andal and blazed a trail across the Sol System. 

Cayde _whoops _when he takes off from the Farm’s lousy excuse of a runway, rising fast above the clouds and up into the upper levels of the atmosphere. There is a moment, as he hovers up there in the thinnest of air, where he looks out into space and utterly _ wishes _ that he could go out there and never look back, never have to think about anything such as the Cabal or this damn Ahamkara and Meera, for that matter. Just... go out there, damn the consequences, and enjoy every single moment of it with just him and his Sundance and the Light. 

Wishing is dangerous business, however, if there truly is an Ahamkara on the loose, and he really should know better. 

But it doesn’t stop him from being just a little bit rebellious. 

In the end, he turns his nose towards Old Russia and presses the scrappy ship as much as he possibly can without ending up as a pile of burning metal hurtling through the atmosphere. 

It’s when he is close to the Cosmodrome that he opens up the communication system and plugs in a ten-ciphered number that he hasn’t had the opportunity to use in _ decades. _

“Shiro? It’s Cayde, come in.” 

Static crinkles in his ears, makes him wince. 

Sundance would know how to get around this sort of thing, as Cayde’s hacking abilities sadly has deteriorated over the years spent as Vanguard. 

Just one more thing he can beat himself over the head with. 

“Shiro, please.” 

Static. 

“C’mon, for fuck’s sake, it’s _Cayde_! Damnit, you rusty scrap-bucket, you better not have died. I’ll drag you back to life and beat your ass if you have,” he leans his head against the controls and closes his eyes. “_Please_.” 

Nothing but static comes across and Cayde clenches his hands on the controls. 

“God fucking _damnit_.” 

* * *

He settles down on the border between the Plague Lands and the Cosmodrome. 

There aren’t many Fallen willing to go anywhere near the QZ—apparently the sign that all Guardians pulled out of the area was enough of a hint for the ether-addicts after all. But even so, Cayde still takes his precautions and determinedly begins to set up an intricate network of tripmines, motion sensors and what else he has been able to work on in his spare time on the Farm. 

In the end, the landing spot looks more like someone made a cozy nest out of a military armory bunker. 

_ Good_, he thinks viciously and nods in approval as he takes a step back to look at the nightmare he has created. _Just try and take her now, fuckers _

He almost hopes that they actually will, just so he can see the explosion from whatever blasted mountain top he’ll be up on when or if it happens. 

* * *

Fellwinter Peak is certainly... something. 

For one thing, it’s windy as fuck up here and Cayde really has trouble seeing whatever it is that has kept Shiro entertained. 

The wolves are nice though. 

When the first one trots up to Cayde, but before it insistently pushes against his hand in a gesture that clearly states ‘start scratching, idiot’, he nearly shits a brick. Figuratively, of course. Tentatively handing out scritches behind the ears and beneath the chin apparently earns him some good grace if the first wolf has anything to say about it and he carefully follows it inside the temple after a few minutes of petting. 

A roaring fire rests in a circular brazier sitting in the middle of the large front room. The statues of Iron Lords all loom ominously from their individual niches and Cayde cannot quite hold back the shiver that runs down his spine as he glances about. Nothing but cobwebs, an abandoned ammunitions-crate and some firewood stand out. 

“Anyone here?” 

His voice echoes. It is more than just a little bit scary. 

Beside him the wolf from before sniffs before it saunters further into the temple. It glances briefly at him when it reaches the stairs before heading up, almost as if it_ begs_ him to follow. 

And Cayde does. 

With a hand on his cannon and the other ready to hurl a knife at the first moving thing he sees, Cayde warily goes closer to the staircase. He moves his feet to exactly where the wolf has stepped, still tense. 

“Hello?” his voice carries up the stairs, creating a hollow echo that answers him back not even half a second later. 

Further up he hears a hollow _clank_ and immediately his gun is out of its holster, pointing up the stairs without flinching even for a moment. His finger caresses the worn hilt, feels how smooth the metal there is, even through his leather gloves, but what is revealed to him isn’t anything threatening. Instead, he sees a can of veggie stew with its lid open, scraped clean with a utensil. 

Bending down, Cayde frowns as he twists and turns the can in his grasp. There shouldn’t be anyone up here by all accounts, but the wolves are friendly enough—which is just straight weird in and of itself—so they can’t_ not _be used to seeing Guardians or even Exos around here. 

Wait... 

That mother_fucker_! 

With nary a second thought, Cayde races up the stairs. He doesn’t pay attention to the wolf prints or the reliefs carved into the mountain wall or anything else that might normally catch his interest. Instead, he practically falls up the stairs in his fervor to_ get up there_, if only to see if Shiro is still here. 

“Shiro!” he calls. “Shiro, it’s me! It’s Cayde!” 

Still no answers, but there are sounds coming from further up the stairs. 

“Shiro!” 

He barges finally comes to the top of the stairs. In front of him there is a wooden door, a strange addition to this place made out of stone, but the shuffling noises are coming from the other side. Cayde starts in a brisk walk the moment that he spots it, only for his walk to turn directly into an all out sprint as he bursts into a room, the door he has collided with slamming harshly against the stone walls. 

And there he is. 

Lying on the ground, slightly propped up against the wolf from earlier, is Shiro. 

“Traveler’s Light,” Cayde breathes. Immediately he kneels down beside the other Exo’s body and props up his head by placing it on his knee. The yellow cloak that his friend is never seen without tangles in-between armored pants and tattered cloth. “Shiro!” 

He runs a hand over his friend's forehead, checks to see if there are any signs of immediate danger, but he finds nothing. It looks as if he has collapsed here against the wall and then the wolf must have... well, it must have snuggled its way in between the wall and Shiro somehow. Fuck if Cayde knows what the Hell is going on here. 

“Shiro?” Cayde’s voice is turning frantic. Not once since Sundance was taken from him by Ghaul’s insane plot has Cayde truly felt a need for her. 

She would know what to do in this situation where Cayde clearly is out of his league. She would know how to get Shiro up and running again. She would know why he was not responding whatsoever. 

As he sits there with Shiro’s unresponsive body propped against his own knee, the wolf from earlier shuffles by his side. Its snout is pressed against Shiro’s chin, but when that appears to do nothing, the wolf instead retreats for a bit, leaving Cayde to sit with all of Shiro’s weight by himself, tilts back its head and _howls_. 

This close to it, Cayde winces when his audio receptors shoot through the roof. and suddenly Cayde is on his ass as Shiro jerks in his arms. 

“What the fuc—” 

“_Bwgh_—swear’m not sleepin’, Sal’din!” 

Shiro’s eyes are wide open and flickers around, confused. He flails briefly as he tries to get up, only to find his movement halted by the arms that Cayde has around him. 

“S-Shiro?” 

“Cayde?” 

Wordlessly Cayde just... sits there. He opens his mouth but no words come out. No backlights flicker at all as he sits there and stares down at Shiro. 

“Good grief, man, I thought you were_ dead_,” Cayde finally manages to get out and he pulls Shiro in close _immediately_. What follows is a hard embrace, that Cayde absolutely refuses to call a hug, as a short bout of strained laughter escapes him. There is nothing huggable about this whatsoever. Simply two old friends reuniting for what seems like _eons_, although it has only been little over a year since last time. 

“You know me,” Shiro groans. His voice is a little bit static-y, but nothing that some good old-fashioned finetuning can’t fix. “Can’t get rid of me that easily, yeah?” 

Cayde just holds on tighter. 

“Never do that to me again, Shiro,” he manages to get out. “_Never_. Do you understand? That’s a fucking order.” 

“I’d salute you and say 'duly noted', but you’re kind of crushing my arms, dude.” 

“Oh...” 

Cayde lets go. It’s slow, but he does it. 

“What has happened, Cayde?” Shiro asks quietly. “One moment everything is fine here at the temple. Then, next thing we know, everybody is keeling over and no one can use their Light. I’ve... I’ve kept on going offline at different intervals, like I can’t quite keep myself awake, and my Ghost...” 

Shiro glances down beside him and only now does Cayde see the familiar yellow chassis of Shiro’s Ghost. It’s scratched up and there is a crack in the chassis that has never been there before. 

“What happened?” 

“I went out with some of those who remained here at the temple. Saladin took a number of people and went for the City. They wanted to figure out what was going on. That was... uh, a few months ago?” 

“You don’t know?” Cayde frowns. 

“Cayde, I’ve been going in and out of consciousness for who knows how long. I don’t exactly have a way of counting days.” 

“Well,” Cayde sighs. “We’re halfway through February. If that does anything for you, I mean.” 

“Halfway through_ February_?” Shiro gapes. Cayde just nods slowly as he helps the other Exo sit up proper against the wall instead of lying in his arms like a damsel in distress. “Holy shit.” 

“Yeah, that’s... that's one way of puttin’ it.” 

“What happened to the City?” 

“The Red Legion came barging in without an invitation,” Cayde spits. “They did something to the Traveler, dunno exactly what. What I _ do _ know is that they cut us off from the Light. Made us all... mortal.” 

“_Eurgh_.” 

Cayde narrows his eyes at Shiro. “This ain’t no joke, you asshole. Shiro, we could very well die if something goes wrong and we don’t take back the City.” 

“The Cabal still hold it?” 

Cayde nods. “They do. Wiped out pretty much all of our defenses, too. I was supposed to establish contact with Shaxx or Zavala but... I haven’t heard from either of them.” 

“Shaxx is too stubborn to die. He’d come back from the dead just to spite us all, probably.” 

“I wholeheartedly agree, Shiro,” Cayde cracks a smile. It’s not a real one, but it’s the closest he’s gotten to a real smile in who even knows how long. “So, you wanna come with me?” 

“Where’re you going?” 

“After this?” Cayde points at the hallway he’d ran through. “Got a few things to take care of out in the Cosmodrome. Could use a second pair of eyes.” 

Shiro winces. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Cayde. I could conk out at any minute.” 

“Then we’d take it from there if you do.” 

Exos have a pretty wide variety of expressions that their facial plates can recreate from a human’s face, but the deadpan way that Shiro looks at Cayde should not be legal. “Cayde, not to be a prick, but I’m not leaving you alone with my comatose body in an area infested with Fallen.” 

“A little running never hurt nobody.” 

“Fallen arc-blasts do, though. Trust me, my Ghost has rezzed me one too many times back in my green days from those. That shit _lingers_, man.” 

“I know.” 

“You asshole.” 

“I know,” Cayde repeats with a cackle and right then it almost feels as if everything is back to how it always was. 

It’s just him and Shiro, out in the middle of nowhere and stuck in a really shitty situation. Now, all they’d need would be Andal contacting them over the comm to solemnly inform them of the incoming shitstorm that was Commander Zavala in T-4 seconds. 

“I missed you, Cayde.” 

“Missed you too, Shiro. C’mon, let’s get out of here. We’ve a Warmind to rob!” 

“Excuse me, what?” 


	13. Meera VI

_ [is it not preferable]DANGEROUS[here? there is nothing to be afraid _ _ of]FEAR _ _ ME[ _ _ now that _ _ i _ _ am _ _ here]YOU _ _ BELONG TO ME[o] _ _ GUARDIAN[ _ _ mine] _

* * *

It’s cold.

She is so very cold.

Where is he? Where is_ it_?

Where is her Light, her Ghost?

* * *

There are brief moments of coherency but they never last very long. She drifts in space, cradles her inactive Ghost carefully in her hands and prays to anyone who will listen, to the Traveler, the Light, even the Darkness. 

She needs him. Needs his familiar presence. She needs her Ghost. Needs her Light. 

It is all so very _cold_. 

Why is it so cold? Where is the Void? She can’t feel it anymore. 

And Meera slips under once more. 

* * *

When she wakes up, Meera is blearily looking up into an unfamiliar ceiling. There is a sharp scent of ship fuel in the air and she can feel a heap of soft blankets covering her body. She’s not wearing much from what she can tell, no doubt nothing but her thermal underwear, and isn’t _ that _just a distressing thing to realize. 

She is still cold. 

“You’re awake,” a voice says to the left of her and Meera slowly turns her head. 

Petra Venj is looking down at her with crossed arms and a scowl on her face. 

“Venj,” Meera croaks out, confused. 

“Quill,” the Queen’s Wrath answers tersely. “You’ve certainly gotten yourself knocked off-course, haven’t you?” 

Meera is not able to see her own face, but whatever expression she currently sports has Petra look like she is regretting spitting out sass. 

“It’s so cold,” she manages to get out of her parched throat. “It won’t stop.” 

“I heard of what happened on Earth,” Petra says quietly, showing no direct acknowledgement of Meera’s words. She shifts her weight from one leg to the other as she tries to find the proper words. “I am... sorry.” 

“I need it back, Petra,” Meera continues as if the other woman has not spoken at all. “T-the Light... I... I can’t stay here—” 

“You’re not going anywhere until you have eaten something and gotten through a physical,” Petra snaps immediately and the scowl from before returns. “I would be a poor rescuer if I did not at least make sure that you were functional before sending you off on a harebrained rescue.” 

Meera is immediately struggling to sit up when she bends over forward, hopelessly coughing, and wordlessly accepts the cup of water that Petra pushes into her shaking hand once it dies down a little. She sips the water carefully and wipes away the tears nestled in the corners of her eyes, before looking up at Petra once more. 

“I can’t... stay here.” 

“Oh, I am by no means intending on keeping you here as my Court Guardian, if that is what you are concerned about,” Petra drily states. “However, showing indifference is not something that I will have the Reefborn accused of during a crisis like this.” 

“You’ll support us?” Meera asks, disbelief barely kept out of her scratchy voice. 

“I cannot. Not outright, at least,” Petra denies and a flash of annoyance dances across her face. “The Awoken out here would never agree to so readily go against the Cabal when we thus far have kept a truce going since they entered this system. Besides, as things are now...” the Queen’s Wrath trails off, looking to the side, and Meera nods, understanding. 

As it stands, the Awoken fleet has yet to recover from Oryx’s abrupt entrance into the System, and Meera knows from experience that they won’t be anywhere _ near _ combat ready anytime soon. Their armadas are shattered, all that remains of the Awoken Monarchy is a reluctant Queen-Regent who holds together a scattered people by sheer force of will. The Reef, for all intents and purposes, is lost. 

“You will be visited by a healer later today and then be sent on your way.” 

Petra is reverting back to cold professionalism, and Meera cannot help but be grateful for it. Despite the cold, despite everything that the Awoken is doing to help her out here, she is still the same Queen’s Wrath who has kept herself at a distance. 

It is so much easier. 

“And then what?” Meera asks. 

“Then you will be escorted to the border of the Reef, whether it be on the inner or outer rim that you wish to depart from.” 

“Closest to Earth,” Meera rasps. “I need to get back.” 

“I thought as much,” Petra nods. She takes a moment to ensure that there is nothing of immediate concern to be solved and then nods before she leaves. “Until then.” 

Looking at Petra’s retreating back, Meera’s eyes falls to the small bed table standing beside her. On it, nestled in the hood of her folded cloak, lies her Ghost. 

Her_ unresponsive _Ghost. 

“We’ll figure this out,” Meera mumbles and reaches out with a trembling hand. Grabbing her Ghost, she holds him close to her and nestles beneath the covers, presses her lips to his cold, unresponsive, shell. “I swear to you, we’ll figure this out.” 

* * *

The whispers begin as she leaves the Reef. 

As she sits in the cockpit of her ship, staring out over the vast expanse of dark space ahead of her, there is the faintest sensation of something... moving in the back of her head. 

“Will you avenge me?” Zalli’s voice whispers into her ear. Meera freezes where she sits as his hand, warm and firm, curls over her shoulder and squeezes. “Please, Meera, won’t you help me?” 

_ Ahamkara will trick you_, a voice rings inside her head. _They will prey on your desires and will lead you to ruin. You will never be safe whilst in their presence _

_ I am already there_, Meera thinks morosely and ducks her head. _Nothing has changed in that regard _

_ “ _You’re dead,” she says. Her voice is tense, yet desperate. “You don’t belong here.” 

“You could rectify that, couldn’t you?” Zalli beckons her. She shivers when his nails dig into her flesh ever so slightly. “You are the Guardian._ Hivebane_. _Kingslayer_. Saladin’s rightful Young Wolf. There is nothing that you cannot do.” 

“Not here. Not in this world.” 

“Who says that you should be limited to this reality?” Zalli laughs and then he is in front of her, caressing her cheeks. He bends his head and presses his lips to hers. They feel dry and cracked, just like they have always looked. “All you need do is Wish it, and I shall grant you_ everything _that you might desire.” 

“You’re lying. It’s a trick,” Meera can feel the tears begin to press behind her eyes. “You’re not him.” 

“But you want me to be,” the creature that has Zalli’s voice, but isn’t really him, smirks. It is a cruel twist of his mouth that, at the same time, feels like benediction. His lips press against hers once more and this time a hand comes down to yank her closer against his body. 

She can feel his arousal press against her and oh, but it’s been _so long_. It pulses between her legs, neglected for so long. Warmth blossoms, fragile and small, inside of her chest for the first time in what seems like forever. 

Even if she shouldn’t. 

Because she really... _really _shouldn’t. 

Not-Zalli's lips move from hers down to her throat, worries at the exposed skin on her throat. “It would be so easy...” 

Her hands come up to tangle in his soft hair, cards through it with her fingers, and the tears trickle down her cheeks. “I... can’t.” 

He pulls away from her, no longer soft and loving but harsh and cold. 

“You know nothing of what is wasted.” 

Zalli retreats, settles in the back of her mind like an ever-flickering ember in the blackest night, and Meera shudders in his absence. 

It is cold once more. 

* * *

Not long after that first time, Meera finally realizes just how persistent an Ahamkara on the hunt for prey can be. 

She closes her eyes and before her she sees Zalli and herself, wrapped in each other’s arms—laughing together—crying together—_existing _together. 

He is alive. 

It is a beautiful creation that she sees before her, but it is a lie. 

A trap. 

A most wonderous illusion being woven by the most dangerous creature in the galaxy. 

And that is when she decides that sleep... well, she can sleep when she is dead. 

Every bout of sleep that she is forced to partake in is fretful and always leaves her wanting. 

It is a long month as she slowly makes her way towards Earth. Above Mars’ orbit she collides with a patrol and barely manages to evade them by diving her ship straight into a dust storm wreaking havoc in the southern hemisphere. They still manage to shoot through the brittle shielding that her vessel has access to, crippling her engines, and the dive through the atmosphere, not to mention the landing, is nothing short of miraculous. 

The same goes for attempting to repair her engines enough for liftoff the rest of the way home, to Earth. 

It is out here, deep in the Martian wastes, that Meera truly gets to feel what it is like to have an Ahamkara haunt her every step. 

Finally, she realizes just what it was Cayde was rambling about way back when bruises from his hands and mouth across her torso seemed like the biggest problem in the universe. Back when they still talked. Her scarce sleeping moments are harried and haunted by promises of grandeur and glory, she only needs to_ Wish it_, and it is oh so tempting to give in. 

But she can’t do it. 

Her Ghost told her about this. _Cayde _told her about this. About every single thing that this damn creature would do to try and ensnare her, seduce her, but somehow it is only now when she is truly vulnerable, that Meera comprehends the truth of what her lover told her so long ago. 

And this is a battle that she is rapidly losing. 

Her supplies won’t last forever, Traveler knows that her water will be gone in days. Her Light is gone. Her chances of getting off the planet are nothing short of disastrous. 

Out here in the cold, harsh nothingness with the occasional dust storms screaming day in and day out, Meera truly feels what it is to be alone. 

And the Ahamkara swoops in like a bird of prey, like a shark scenting blood in the water. 

* * *

Her comm is a small, barely functioning thing that scarcely has enough power to remain connected to the network.

She begs, cries for someone—_anyone__—Cayde_—to hear her.

All of her hope is poured into that small device, blinking a dull green light as it sends out her message.

* * *

Zalli appears before her once more. 

Her water is gone and she is alone. Her engine barely functions but it holds as she forces her way through Mars’ atmosphere and finds herself in the vastness of space once more. Meera feels her tongue, dry and scraping against the insides of her mouth. Her vision is unfocused and flickering. A headache throbs badly behind her temples. 

She closes her eyes. 

But there he is, looking at her intensely. 

_ Would you not like to have me back? _

“I can’t.” 

_ Am I really worth so little to you? _

“You’re dead. It won’t happen.” 

_ But you deserve happiness, do you not? _

“I doubt that I deserve anything at this point. After everything I’ve done, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cosmos would keep me trapped here forever.” 

_ I could break that cycle _

“You’re the one who got me trapped here in the first place.” 

_ You were the one who Wished. You and that other Lightbearer... a male... an Exo... a lost relic from a Golden Age forgotten by all, slave to his own mind as it twists and corrupts itself for every reset brought upon it. Both of you were so pitiful there in the depths of the Prison, and I could hear your yearning for each other across the boundaries of time and space. Across Ascendant oceans your cries for each other were heard and I _answered 

“You were the one who shielded me from Oryx.” 

_ The Taken King had no right to my spoils of war... you and your heart-mate belong to _me 

“We didn’t ask for this.” 

_ But you did. When you made a Wish, your fates were bound to me. And I shall collect when the time is right _

Meera wakes. The burning remains of her ship are spread around her in a near-perfect circle, yet she herself untouched, and she stares up at the clouded skies of Venus. 

This is wrong, she_ knows _this, but she is just so tired. 

Tired of the struggle. 

Tired of having to shoulder one loop after the other. 

Tired of not even having Cayde to rely on anymore, sundered as they are from each other. 

And she finally gives in. 

* * *

I am Riven[so much more]of a Thousand Voices[the greatest]last of my kind[Ahamkara]and you belong to me[O]guardian[mine] 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts and constructive criticism is always welcome :)


	14. Cayde VII

“You’re insane.”

Now, Cayde had not been under the impression that he would receive a standing ovation when he returned from the Cosmodrome, but the look of something that keeps shifting between incredulous wonder and outright horror on Suraya’s face is downright hysterical.

He shrugs as best he can under the weight of several hundred kilos of tech, supplies and whatnot else he and Shiro have scavenged off of the Cosmodrome’s wastelands and RASPUTIN’s bunker, and smiles.

“Did you really doubt me?”

“The thought may have crossed my mind once or twice,” Suraya says, looking quite dazed as she takes in everything that has been brought to the Farm. “Cayde, this is _incredible_.”

“Should be enough to start workin’ on— that shielding for the Farm,” he grunts. “You, uh, you mind helpin’ out here, Shiro?”

Shiro, the cocky shit, grins at him before sending Suraya a loose salute. “Name’s Shiro-4, a Vanguard scout. You must be the one Cayde hasn’t stopped yappin’ about since we teamed up.”

If anything, Suraya’s eyebrows shoot straight for her hairline. “Oh really? Has he now?”

“Sure has,” Shiro carries on, missing the ‘abort mission’ motions Cayde is signaling off to the side. “Went on and on about the way you’ve been handling this whole Cabal vs Guardians-thing. Now, don’t tell him I’ve said this, but he seems almost... impressed.”

Suraya ain’t a bird but she sure does puff up like one when she hears Shiro’s words, looking as proud as proud can be over the praise from the newcomer. Cayde doesn’t miss how she sends him an appreciative glance, either.

For fuck’s sake, Shiro.

She chuckles, even if it sounds much more like an honest-to-Light giggle in Cayde’s opinion, before her attention is once more back on Cayde. “You can hand that over to the technicians. I’m sure that you’re both exhausted.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Cayde’s arms buckles slightly as he begins unloading the copious amounts of loot that he has hauled all this way. “Traveler’s crack, never thought I’d miss transmatting by Ghost as much as I do right now.”

“Oh, suck it up, buttercup,” Shiro snorts as he heads over to help out. “You’re an Exo, your muscles will be _fine_.”

“Says you,” Cayde sniffs daintily. “You never know, I might very well have lost both my arms by tomorrow because of all the shit we had to take back.”

Shiro guffaws. “Do you even hear yourself, Cayde? You were the one who insisted on collecting what seems like every tech hoarder’s wet dream before heading back here!”

“We needed the supplies!” Cayde argues, and if he looks outraged then it is absolutely because he is.

“As interesting as it is to see the two of you reenact how a married couple fights, I do believe that I am needed elsewhere,” Suraya cuts in before Cayde and Shiro get any further in their not-at-all-childish argument. “Cayde, if you wouldn’t mind stopping by my post once you’re done here?”

He waves his hand in her general direction and winces when he hears her exasperated sigh.

Fuck’s sake, he never should have started that damn flirting around.

“Looking forward to it,” she calls before sashaying away with her rifle slung over her shoulder and a satisfied smirk on her face.

God damn it.

“Shiro,” he growls and glances at the other Exo. “In the future, do shut up about those things.”

“What, about your easy way with women? Cayde, she was practically on the verge of falling into your lap from the moment you set foot here,” Shiro argues. However, he must see _something_ foreboding on Cayde’s face, because his jovial expression fades somewhat. “Hey, if it’s such a big deal I won’t bring it up again, alright? A little flirting never stopped you before.”

“Things changed.”

“Evidently,” Shiro notes. The two of them crouch down in each their part of the heap and begin sorting, but even so, Shiro can’t seem to keep completely quiet. “So... what happened since last time we saw each other? Y’know, besides the fact that Cabal came out of fuckin’ nothing and wrecked our shit. You in the doghouse?”

“Excuse me?” Cayde does a doubletake at Shiro.

“You know, left out in the cold?” Shiro is fishing, Cayde _knows it_. “Did your Lady Love leave you, or somethin’?”

This time Cayde does nothing to stop the wave of anger that takes over his everything. He abruptly stands up from the pile of non-sorted tech, throws down the bag of spinmetal he’s been clutching and stomps away, heading straight for his personal space.

Shiro is up and going after him in seconds.

“Wha—_hey_! Cayde, man, what the Hell is—”

Cayde cuts him off by walking into the small hut he has claimed as his own and slams the door, locking it for good measure, and even then, placing the one barely-functioning chair he has in front of the doorway.

He can hear Shiro on the other side, banging against the aged metal, but Cayde ain’t budging.

Not on this.

And today was going so great too.

* * *

Shiro doesn’t ask again about Cayde’s love life and Cayde doesn’t provide any answers.

The next day Cayde is throwing quips around like it’s going out of style and if it is bothering Shiro, his partner makes sure not to comment on any of it.

Good. Everything is exactly as it should be.

Cayde goes back to what is safe—secure—and continues work on the cloaking tech.

* * *

Time passes.

February becomes March becomes April.

And with April comes familiar faces.

* * *

Cayde is not really sure how to act the moment that the group of mortal Guardians, a few civilians and _Shaxx_ decides to arrive at the Farm.

He’s quite sure that a warm hug will be met with anything ranging from hesitant or no reciprocation (the Guardians) to outright hostility and a smack (Shaxx).

He’s not really keen on either, even if his fingers are itching to reach out, get a good hold of the scruffy fur around Shaxx’s shoulders and feel someone else close to him.

By the Light, he misses it—physical contact, that is.

Shaxx, ever the solution to a multitude of problems, solves everything for Cayde by marching up to him shortly after arriving at the Farm and dragging him in for a brief, but firm, embrace.

“You survived.”

A statement, a commendation, and Cayde cannot help but preen—just a little bit.

“You did as well,” he answers. There is a hitch in his voice that neither comment on, thankfully. “What about—?”

“Zavala and Ikora took off together last I saw them,” Shaxx interrupts him brusquely. “I don’t know where. Knowing Ikora, somewhere safe.”

“What, Big Blue don’t count as safe?” Cayde couldn’t be more grateful for Shaxx’s statement, finding it all too easy to slip into familiar roles of scathing banter and idiotic remarks. “Thought you Titans always stuck together.”

“I respect the Commander for his ability to keep the City and the Traveler safe. His temper, however…”

Cayde chortles. “Never seen Zavala as furious as some of the older ones describe him. Well, he was pretty pissed when the Cabal arrived, but…”

“No,” Shaxx shakes his head. “I have seen Zavala wear many faces, but what he wore when the Red Legion came to the Last City was not fury. It was something far more dangerous.”

“Oh?” Cayde’s brow-plate rises. “And pray tell, what might that be?”

“Dread. Pure and simple.”

Cayde doesn’t have a smart remark for _that_.

“Well, fuck,” he sighs and leans back against a crate. He fingers one of the tattered strips of clothing hanging from the bottom of his cloak with one hand, as the other goes to caress the pouch wherein Sundance’s shell rests. “You think we’ll bounce back from this?”

“It will only be a matter of time before a counteroffensive will be launched, I’m sure,” Shaxx nods. “After all, we have a Guardian out there looking for their Light.”

Shaxx’s words bring forth a searing pain inside of Cayde’s chest.

He has to grip onto something there for a second as he forces his voice box to cooperate. “Who?”

“I believe you know this one,” Shaxx’s voice is turning mirthful and his helmet twists just enough to imitate an… almost playful expression?

What the fuck is going on here.

“Who are you talking about?”

There is only one word in his head. It repeats, repeats, repeats but it can’t be her, it just _can’t_, because if it is her then there is no reason for him to stay out here in the middle of bumfuck nowhere after he is done with the cloaking devices. No amounts of quirky smiles from Suray—_Hawthorne_ will be able to keep him here but he hopes he hopes he _hopes_—

“Tora Solaris,” Shaxx’s voice is positively _gleeful_. “A finer being of chaos will be hard to find.”

And Cayde _breathes_.

* * *

Fucking Solaris.

Of course, it’s him. Someone close enough to Meera for Fate or Destiny or Lady Luck to stuck their grubby claws in them. Cayde should have known. He _should_.

The Awoken Warlock is a walking electrical hazard at the best of times—at least, he’s been like that ever since Ikora got it into her head to teach the bugger the ways of the Stormcaller—but loyal to a fault towards those he sees as his own, and that is really the only thing that has Cayde settling his hackles, even slightly.

_Here’s to hoping that he won’t be swallowed by the Hell that lies in wait out there_, Cayde thinks and downs a glass of something sour that burns the entire way down. It’s pilfered moonshine at its finest and he lets the following shudder run its course when it comes beckoning.

“Fuckin’ Solaris…”

“Someone you know?”

The noise that Cayde lets out is in no way, shape or form a feminine shriek. No, it is a very _manly_, very _masculine_ shout that absolutely does not make Sura—no, Cayde, _Hawthorne’s_—bird take off from her shoulder with a piercing cry.

Su—Hawthorne lifts an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Uh, y—of course I am,” Cayde flounders for a second until he feels like he _almost_ has things under control. “Just, ah… you, uh, you surprised me there for a second.”

“I thought you were the Hunter Vanguard,” Hawthorne chuckles and leans against her rifle. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be nigh impossible to sneak up on?”

“Well, yeah…”

“So, what happened here? Rookie luck?”

“Probably,” Cayde agrees readily with her. If he keeps it up, maybe she’ll go away. “So, can I help you with something?”

Hawthorne’s previously mischievous smile disappears and is replaced with a concerned frown.

“Yeah, actually. You never showed up to that debrief back when you and Shiro-4 came back with all those supplies.”

“I was busy.”

“With what? The tech?”

“As a matter of fact, I was. Why, is that a problem?”

“No, on the contrary it is fantastic work what you’re doing. But I asked you to come by, Cayde.”

He frowns and steps backwards, really looks at her.

“Look, I lost track of things what with Shiro and I comin’ home safe enough, followed by Shaxx and the other Guardians finding this place. I’m sorry, alright?”

“That’s not the issue here, Cayde.”

“Then what _is_?”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Have not!” is the automatic answer that flies right out of his mouth. He scowls, but it lessens when he actually _looks_ at Hawthorne.

She’s… well, the best description that he can give her is probably disappointed.

“I thought that you, well…”

“What?”

“That you were interested in spending more time together, hence the invitation,” she says. The rifle gets slung over her shoulder and she straightens her back as she turns around to leave. “But obviously I was wrong.”

“No, Haw—_Suraya_!” Cayde calls and reaches out. He gets a hold of her shoulder and tries to turn her around to look at him. Whether she just lets him or actually is interested in still talking to him, he’s not quite sure. “Listen I just—sorry, alright? I’ve been a bit stressed lately.”

“Stressed? You?”

“One of the Guardians are out there, according to Shaxx. Someone who’s gone looking for a way to get their Light back.”

If she is even slightly surprised by his words, Hawthorne sure does a good job of keeping it a secret.

“Regaining the Light?” she sounds incredulous. “And you actually believe that?”

“I can’t afford not to,” Cayde argues. “Not when the Last City might—”

“Your City is _gone_, Cayde!” Hawthorne explodes. “The Traveler? It’s just a ball hanging in the sky that didn’t do jackshit when the Cabal came to Earth! It did _nothing_ for those inside the walls of your precious City, just like us outside have been left to fend for ourselves! It’s over, alright? Best thing you can do right now is just accept that and move forward. Do what you can with the life that you have left.”

“No.”

She stares at him. Just… stands there, staring at him, like he is an absolute idiot for not agreeing with her.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘no’. In case you didn’t hear it,” he spits out. “Are you even aware of what you’re asking me?”

“Please, Cayde, _enlighten me_!”

“The Traveler and being a Guardian is all that I know, alright! You claim to not bein’ stupid, which should mean that you also know about the fact that we don’t remember _shit_ when we wake up! You asking me to give up being a Guardian, and all because we lost our home, would be the same as me asking you to go back to fucking civilization! Neither of us’ll do it, ‘cause we both know that it won’t end well.”

“You could change.”

“So could you,” he counters. “Doesn’t necessarily mean that you should.”

“I thought that you wanted this. Wanted _us_.”

“If that’s what I’ve insinuated to you, then I’m sorry, but I ain’t lookin’ for a relationship. Not while we’re all in this shithole of a situation.”

“So you’d rather just stay as you are now, then?” Hawthorne steps closer to him, anger making her cheeks flush. “Tinkering with Golden Age tech and grumbling about the situation we’re in while drinking booze? If that is your idea of a heroic Vanguard, then I’d hate to see what your worst is.”

“I’m not perfect, never said that I was. But at least we have someone out there makin’ a difference!”

“Like who? Meera Quill?”

Cayde stops.

“Where did you hear that name?” he demands. “_Where_?”

Hawthorne is looking thunderous. “Oh, I don’t know, only from practically every Guardian currently staying here at the Farm. ‘Guardian Quill’ this and ‘Meera’ that. ‘The Hunter Vanguard’s favorite protégé’. All kinds of interesting stuff, let me tell you. So who is this mysterious Guardian that hasn’t shown up yet, despite people singing her praises?”

“Meera ain’t—she is none of your damn business.”

“Oh, touchy subject, I see,” Hawthorne lets out a sharp laugh and fingers the frayed edges of her poncho. “Someone special, I take it?”

Cayde has to physically keep himself from removing himself from the conversation. He won’t run away, not from this. His pride won’t let him.

“I may not be one of your illustrious Guardians, Cayde-6, but I am by no means stupid,” Hawthorne hisses. “Next time you decide to string someone along for a rebound after your little girlfriend left you, be frank about it, yeah?”

She is close enough for him to see the faintest trace of tears beginning to gather in the corners of her eyes by now.

“I never intended to—”

“I don’t _care_!” she snaps at him. Neither of them are yelling, and ain’t that just a straight up miracle all on its own, but it probably won’t be long before one of them breaks that. “Do you have any idea how it feels to finally, _finally_ have a person in their life who actually comes across as someone who _cares_, only for that very same person yank everything away from underneath you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Cayde snarls at her. His hand is tight around Sundance’s pouch, cradles her still shell and core. “And I never wanted to—”

“Just stop, Cayde,” Hawthorne sighs and turns away. “Just… go, alright?”

“You want me out of here?”

“I want you somewhere where _I_ won’t get to see you every fucking day.”

“Consider it done, Hawthorne,” he says tersely.

And as he walks away, he never looks back.

* * *

Cayde is never going to admit this, but getting the chance to be away from the Farm is the best thing that has ever happened to him.

It’s barely been three weeks since he’s come back, however, and that is just sad.

Used to be a time where he could actually handle sitting still longer than a five-year-old, but those days are seemingly over and done with, much to his chagrin.

Everything feels heavy and stifling, and Shaxx’s words about Solaris being out there in the system, looking for a way to get back his Light so he can kick Cabal ass only aggravates the urge to just get up and _go_. To get out there in the System, find Zavala and Ikora, bring them back to Earth and make a damn plan already. Between himself, Solaris and maybe a Titan or two, it shouldn’t be hard to breach whatever security the Cabal have set up on the Almighty before pulling into the proverbial driveway and kickin’ Gary out.

Now if only Meera was actually—_no_. Nope. Not going down that road anytime soon. No siree.

He gets his shit packed down. Everything from rations to spare parts to the equipment he fiddles with to make the enormous cloaking device for the Farm—_everything_ gets packed.

_Everything_.

“Fucking Hell,” he mumbles and sits down on the bed. The last twenty-four hours are repeating inside his head, running havoc like nothing else.

Last night was… _is_… a clusterfuck beyond proportions.

And all because of what? His inability to keep it in his pants?

Light above, he’s pathetic.

A sharp knock on the door to his quarters has him look up. What he sees has him tighten every single part of his body.

Suraya.

She is without both her bird and her rifle, looking wretched as she stares at him. Dark circles beneath her eyes stand out, as does the somewhat unkept state of her normally meticulously backswept hair.

“Did you sleep at all?”

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself, and Cayde winces. Even so, he is still rewarded with a neutral chuckle.

“Not really, no. Kept thinking,” Hawthorne says quietly. She avoids his eyes when he tries to get eye contact. “Hey, uh, can I come in?”

“It’s your place,” Cayde says just as softly and gestures with open arms to the room. When she winces at his words there is a moment where vindictive glee shoots through him, but only for a moment. “Be my guest.”

“Thanks.”

She enters and hovers by the entrance, leaning against the wall as she looks around.

“So, what can I do you for?”

“You’re actually leaving?” she asks. If Cayde didn’t know any better he’d say that she is actually sounding hurt. “You don’t want to stay?”

“You asked me to get out of here, if I recall.”

She winces again. This time the tears are back, glistening in the corners of her eyes as she finally looks over at him.

“Have you talked with anyone?”

“Not really,” he frowns. “Didn’t really want to hand you over to the proverbial wolves over something like this. I’m not that petty. Just, I don’t know, tell the ducklings that you’ve sent me out on reconnaissance, or something. It would be plausible.”

Hawthorne looks worried nonetheless. “I wasn’t—Cayde, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” he interrupts. “I get it, I really do. If someone had been stringin’ me along, I’d be pretty pissed too. Still, I never meant for things to get this far out of hand.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I’m… sorry.”

“Well, I’ll… uh… y’know, continue packin’ and ev—"

And then—

She is suddenly right up in his face, staring intensely at him with a fervor that Cayde usually sees in Guardians staring at new, shiny loot being dangled right in front of their greedy little faces.

Her lips are on his. Not soft and pliable like Meera’s, but cracked from the outdoors and the wind and they’re laced with this berry taste clinging to them which he strongly suspects comes from the toothpaste that they’re making out here. She tastes of the Wilderness and _home_ and Cayde can’t help but let out a small groan before he finally pulls back.

Her cheeks are flushed again, looking very much just like she did last night, but this isn’t from anger.

“We—we shouldn’t,” he rasps out. His hands come up to rest on her shoulders, lightly squeezing. “Suraya…”

Hawthorne looks honest-to-the-Light disappointed at his words.

“Don’t go,” she begs him. “Please, Cayde.”

“This thing here, it won’t…” he fumbles for the words briefly. “It couldn’t work.”

“Too many ghosts,” she whispers. “I know.”

“Would be nice if it could, though,” he chuckles. “Not goin’ to lie, it gets lonely. ‘Specially after losin’ someone.”

“I miss him every day,” she agrees and leans her forehead against his chest. Cayde’s arms come up to embrace her, lightly. “Every fucking day.”

“We’ll make them pay, Suraya. You have my word.” he says quietly before letting go and stepping backwards. He still has a room to pack down, after all.

Hawthorne, however, remains for a few moments as he continues packing down his belongings.

“Something else on your mind?”

“It’s just… would you come by before you leave? Got some info for you.”

He hesitates. Honestly, it would be best to just get up and out of here, ripping the band aid and all that, but on the other hand… if there is some last bit of info that she can get him about the comings and going out there in the world, it would be invaluable.

“Yeah, I can stop by,” he nods and Suraya smiles feebly before she disappears almost as quickly as she appeared in the first place.

Hunched down like he is, Cayde fishes out Sundance’s shell and traces her fins as he sighs. “Well, this sure is a shitty situation I’ve gotten myself into, huh, ‘Dance?”

Her lack of an answer bothers him just as much as it did in those first, Lightless days.

Finally finishing up with his packing and then proceeding to sneak over to the post where Hawthorne spends most of her time is almost stupidly easy. It is still early enough in the morning for only the earliest risers (and Shaxx) to be up, and Cayde takes full advantage of it.

“You had something for me?”

Hawthorne, to her credit, doesn’t jump when he sneaks up on her. Instead she turns around, and gives him the tiniest of smiles.

She looks much, much better than earlier in his room with her hair smoothed hair and the dark circles not as prominent as they were before.

“I did, yes,” she says and gestures him over to a table. Every inch is covered in maps and Cayde nods appreciatively at the sight. “Come over here for a moment.”

He comes.

“We’ve got reports of a Guardian having been spotted in the area,” Hawthorne points on the wide map of the area on the table. At no point does she raise her eyes to actually look at him. “Here, around the cliffs, and earlier this week I had people say they’ve seen someone try to traverse the slopes up near the Shard.”

Cayde frowns. “That’s close.”

“Mhmm,” Suraya nods. She looks at him for a moment before her eyes flit down to the map once more. “If you’re really set on leaving… it wouldn’t hurt to check up on it. Might even be one of the Guardians.”

“How’s the Cabal presence in the area?”

“Up close to the shard it’s thin, if not nonexistent. Whatever is keeping them away from that area I’ve half a mind to strew it all over the Farm. But that first one, up near the cliffs? They’ve got a couple of small outposts out there, still trying to flush us out, I think.”

“Eh, nothing that I can’t handle.”

“See, you say that, but last I checked you were the near helpless ones out there.”

“Haha, funny,” he mutters and scowls.

Suraya just laughs briefly before she sobers. “If you _do_ end up out there, Cayde, be careful, yeah?”

Cayde tugs at the front of his hood, draws it further down his face. “If you say so.”

He’s finally ready to head out. The stars are the limit, or so they say.

“Oh, and Cayde?”

“Hm?” he looks over at Hawthorne.

“Take care out there, yeah?”

He cracks a grin and then he’s off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, as always, are appreciated :)


	15. Meera VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all aboard the pain-train, choo choo

The sound of chittering birds wakes her up.

Blinking away the sleep that makes her eyelids want to stick greedily to her lashes, Meera mumbled something unintelligible as she stretches her body and limbs as far as they can go. There is a pleasant ray of sunshine[radiation] falling in through the open window.

She sits up in bed and smiles at the thrall sitting on the branch outside her window. Its maw opens, reveals rows upon rows of teeth, and Meera waves at it, delighted. It flaps its claws before taking off, soaring through the early morning sky where a shattered Traveler drifts. Meera looks around the bedroom, but there are no signs of her partner, anywhere.

Usually, Cayde likes to sleep in.

"Cayde?" Meera calls out. She wraps the burnt sheets around herself and slides out of the bed. "You there?"

A strange noise comes from outside the door, but it sounds kind of like Cayde, and so Meera departs the cozy, burning bedroom. After all, she needs to see what is happening out there.

And the eyes follow her, ever hungry.

In the kitchen she finds Cayde, sitting on the counter with a cup of steaming coffee in hand. The smell of caffeine[the wretched depths of space] envelops everything around them.

Cayde smiles.

“You’re finally awake, I see!” he calls out, laughing, and Meera runs to him. He chuckles when she falls into his arms and breathes in her scent. She burrows closer and wraps her legs around his midsection.

“I dreamt that you were—”

“—dead? Yup, me too, sweetie.”

Meera frowns.

No, No, she hadn’t dreamt that he was dead, had she?

A whir off to the side distracts her and she looks down to see the little Vex Goblin stomp around in circles around itself. There are trails of radiolaria in its wake, the fluid coming from the hole in its central tank, but it doesn’t seem to[everywhere the cloying scent of wrongness seeps in] mind.

“What is—”

Cayde distracts her with a firm kiss. He caresses her back[claws dig into her flesh, tears it into ribbons] and she sighs happily[her cries of pain rise in volume].

“Stay with me,” he whispers. “Promise. _Wish it_.”

And Meera hums happily as she clings to her lover.

* * *

There is something that she needs to do.

If only she could remember what it is.

The skies of Venus are thick with yellowed clouds. In the distance, volcanoes are erupting fluorescent smoke and material up into the atmosphere.

It reeks.

But she has to remember.

And Meera wanders.

* * *

“Cayde?”

Where is he? He is supposed to be here, isn’t he?

The voices promised.

They said that he would be here, and soon.

“Cayde?”

* * *

She runs a finger down the back of the thrall-bird, smiling as she slowly lifts and lowers the finger that it sits on. Such a nice little thrall, so obedient and quiet.

“Love?”

She turns her head and smiles. Cayde stands there, he’s dressed in a suit[the human man screams when they rip out his consciousness and stuffs him into a cold, metal chassis—he wants to go home, see his family, see his wife, his son oh God Ace aceaceaceAceAcEACEACEACE!] and smiles back to her. He is radiant[decrepit].

“You’re home!”

His arms are around her and holds her close, clenches her until bones break until pleasure erupts until she throws back her head in ecstacy and cries his name until Riven—

—there is nothing.

She sits in the garden, Cayde on the blanket beside her—he slumbers, but forever watchful—and she lifts and lowers the thrall.

"Such a nice little thrall, so obedient and quiet."

* * *

And the nightmare[innermost desire] continues.

* * *

Crystals.

There are crystals hovering in the air around her.

They whisper to her. Sweet, innocent whispers about how she can change things if only she gives in, if only they can be let inside to show her the proper way.

The Cabal deserve it, after all. They took away her Light, her Void, her everything. It’s all because of them.

It’s all because of _them_.

And the whispers grow louder. Cold gathers at the tips of her fingers, almost within touch, but when she opens her eyes there in nothing.

Nothing but numb fingertips and tear-tracks down her cheeks.

* * *

_Bang_

A bullet casing falls to the floor, clinks against the several others before lying still.

Meera pulls the trigger and frowns when the sound of an empty magazine greets her. She reaches for her pouch and snags out a few extra clips. With deft movements she loads them into her sidearm, raises it and _fires_.

_Where am I?_

The thought prowls the corners of her mind. Stays far enough away from the newer, aggressive being locked in here with her.

Every bullet hits the bullseye.

That tiny fucking red spot a hundred feet away, and she hits it_ spot on_.

It's not enough.

It will _never _be enough.

_Bang_

_Bang_

_Bang_

_Bang_

She barely notices when the other Guardians out here on the shooting grounds begin to leave, how they all keep an eye on her at all times.

What does it even matter?

But what she does notice is how the rage inside of her never dies down. It stays exactly where it is inside of her head, building and raging higher and louder until she can barely even hear the gun.

The voices. The voices keep whispering to her.

Something hot falls onto her hand and when she ceases her shooting long enough to notice, she sees something clear pooled on the back of it. Dipping a finger in it she brings it to her tongue and frowns.

Salt.

She’s crying?

The thrall sits in the corner. Flaps its wings. It's jaw is split once more as it pecks at the ground. It keeps watching her, taunting her.

“Meera!”

Tora’s voice makes her turn around almost instinctually, one hand raised to her lips and the other holding a smoking gun.

“You’re crying,” Tora whispers as he walks over to her. He fishes out a handkerchief and begins dabbing at her cheeks with gentle, careful movements. More tears create new trails that are taken away just as quickly. “Oh, Meera…”

Zalli watches her. She can see him out of the corner of her eye. He smiles, a toothy grin that stretches from one ear to the other, right across his face.

She doesn’t say anything to him, but Tora has known her for a damn long time now, long enough to know when she’s sad or tired or angry, and he pulls her into a tight embrace. The gun is dropped on the ground—and wouldn’t Banshee just be _screaming_ if he saw her handle her weapons like that?—as her hands instead tangle themselves into the thick, embroidered fabric of Tora’s robes. She burrows her head against his chest and _breathes_. It’s a drawn out, shuddering breath that makes her feel just that much closer to crying and sobbing out loud. She is supposed to be better than this, to accept and move on from the fact that… that…

Zalli is dead.

_He’s dead, yes, but he could be alive…_

“He’s dead, Tora,” she mumbles, disbelieving still. “I don’t—I—”

“It’ll be alright, Meera,” Tora whispers and his lips press against her forehead in a gentle caress. “We’ll make it through this, somehow.”

But... she has been here before. She knows that she has. This happened a long time ago, differently too.

"I've been here before..."

No one answers her. It's almost like Tora hasn't even heard her speak.

_All you need do is Wish it_

But what does it matter anyway? Aren't memories easier to cope with if they're twisted to suit one's own whim?

“There were—I hadn’t… _fuck_,” Meera sobs. “I wasn’t _done_ with him, Tora! I—I still had things to talk to him about!”

“Me too, squirt.”

“It’s not fucking fair!”

Tora breathes in, it’s shuddering and rattles in his chest. His hands tighten around her shoulders and if it is even possible, he draws her even closer than before in his giant bear hug. “I know, Meera.”

“I want him back, Tora,” she wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand. There’s a shiny trail of snot stretched along the intricate embroidery on his chest. “I—I wish…”

And Zalli’s grin widens as—

—a far-off, echoing noise interrupts and Meera startles. The vision of Tora’s arms around her disappear in a flash, almost like it has never been there at all, and instead she looks at where she is standing.

When… when did she get here?

Trees rise up around her in what looks like an almost-perfect sphere, and there in the faint distance she can just about see rooftops. She is somewhere on Venus, that much is clear, but exactly where is a very good question that she has no idea how to answer. Not even Ghost has answers for her here, and she caresses the small, still-intact shell lying in her breast pocket. The clearing is large, and would be completely flattened if it weren’t for the large skeleton that rises up before her. 

Several bones look to be missing, but there is no doubting the serpentine shape of the body, the strong limbs once sleek but now hollowed.

The powerful aura that comes off of it in _waves_.

Before her lies the remains of an Ahamkara.

And Meera’s eyes fill with tears.

She did it.

She found one.

She actually found an Ahamkara, albeit not a live one.

_You desire…_

A whisper resonates within her and Meera places a trembling hand upon the snout of the skull before her. Its hollow eye sockets almost appear as if it is staring directly back at her. Touching the bone makes the tips of her fingers tingle, even through the padded, worn gloves she is wearing, and Meera shivers.

She feels so very small, standing in front of a true behemoth of a creature. Dwarfed when compared to the giant creature.

The smell of volcanic sulphur is strong, blown down here by the strong winds.

_What do you Wish for, child?_

Meera blinks.

Wish?

No, wait, isn’t something—?

“Don’t think about it too hard, sweetheart,” Cayde’s voice whispers into her ear and Meera nods slowly. Cayde makes sense, he always means well. “Just give in. It’ll only take a second, and then we’ll be together again. Jus’ you and me. Our Ghosts off somewhere to do whatever weird thing it is they do when they’re alone. Just you and me, sweetcheeks.”

His metal lips press against her cheek, dark promises that slither across her mind, and her eyes glaze over.

_Your story is... _ _Fascinating. They call you hero. They worship you, but you kill as many as you save_

“I don’t want to be alone anymore…”

“That’s it, just a full sentence now!” Cayde urges her on from the side. His fingers dig through her arm guards and into her flesh. She barely blinks at the pain that erupts where metal digs into skin. “Just a little bit more!”

_Would you like to be mine? To form a Bond? I could help you be so much more..._

Her knees are buckling. She falls to the ground and her fingers dig into the soft, moist earth beneath her fingers. Even the ground is singing with the magic that the Ahamkara is soaked in, enough so that she can barely even see straight the longer that she is sitting here, breathing all of it in.

Power is everywhere around her, whips the air into a frenzied storm, and she whimpers.

The presence before her is overpowering, it hurts it hurts why does it hurt whywhYWHYWHY_WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY_—

_SHIING_

An earsplitting noise explodes in the air somewhere behind her and Meera screams. The explosion forces pressure onto her eardrums, they ache and hurt from the blast, and she is thrown against the skeleton. There is the burning-hot sensation of shrapnel digging itself into her flesh, Cayde’s body no longer there to shield her from whatever has snuck up on her, and the pain is enough to make her breathless.

“G-Ghost—” she chokes out, draped across the snout of the Ahamkara. “P-_please_!”

But there is no Ghost.

There is no one but herself and a decaying skeleton in the middle of a clearing, somewhere on Venus, and behind her she hears the chittering of Fallen.

“Someone… _please_…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts are, as always, appreciated :)


	16. Cayde VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've officially gone over 100k words, whooooo

The Shard of the Traveler towers above him. 

Around him, the forest is warped and twisted. Trees, even more than five miles away from the Shard itself, are twined around themselves, with strange growths and plants covering almost every part of them. He sees luminescent flowers bloom in thick clusters around him and as he comes closer a thick fog rolls in from someplace further inside. 

Lightning crackles in the air above him this close to the off-cast piece of their slumbering God and flies from one jagged edge to the other. It’s sheer sense of presence is almost overwhelming, the longer he stares at it, but Cayde continues his trek through a forest that he has only seen through the recordings from in-the-field Ghosts and Guardians. The Shard almost _looms_ over him, and even though he is several kilometers away from it, Cayde feels the Light. 

Or, at least something that _feels_ suspiciously like the Light. 

And while being this close to the Light is downright exhilarating, there is still the sense of… well, of something not being quite how it is supposed to be. It doesn’t quite feel like when he heard the whispers, when he saw Meera before her time and ruined his and Sundance’s life forever, and yet. 

And yet. 

He pulls open the pouch he has Sundance’s chassis in and fishes it out into his hand. It feels warmer than usual, almost like it pulses in response to the call of the Light. It would be so easy to go up there to the Shard, just like Meera did all those lifetimes ago, and demand that this strange, impure Light fix what has been broken—that it fixes Sundance—but it won’t be the same. He may not get _his_ Sundance back, and the thought of his little buddy not being how he remembers her being this time around is, quite frankly, _terrifying_. 

To Cayde, it feels like he is breathing molasses. 

Every step that he takes in the direction of the Shard feels wrong, like he isn’t supposed to be here, this close to a part of the Traveler. It doesn’t feel like he remembers. Something heavy presses down on him from somewhere above, but he has to keep going. 

He _has to_. 

Solaris won’t find himself, after all. 

The sense of _heaviness_ grows the further in that Cayde makes it, but still he presses on. 

When the familiar screeches of Fallen reach his auditory modules, Cayde drops and flattens himself against the ground, pressing a shaking hand against his mouth as if to trap in any sounds that he might involuntarily make. The fog is too thick to see through properly, even with his mechanical eyes, but he can just about manage to make out a few different heat signatures scattered around ahead of him. 

“Damnit,” he hisses and clenches his hand. 

Sure, he’s got his Ace of Spades, as well as more than enough knives and grenades to blow a small fort to smithereens, but Fallen shock rifles _hurt_. And as the situation is, he has no guarantee of getting out of here alive. 

_You’re so fucking stupid, Cayde_, a voice hisses inside his head and he recognizes it as his own. He knows that what he’s doing is dumb. Idiotic, even. Downright asinine. 

“Well, here goes nothing,” Cayde presses the barrel of the gun to his lips and utters a quick prayer to the Traveler in his head. 

And that’s when he stands up, levels his iron at the nearest dreg, and _fires_. 

* * *

There is a moment where he falters, where he grabs for a grenade made of sunlight that isn’t there, and hesitates just long enough for a Fallen’s rifle to let a shot lined up with him. 

Cayde sees it. Sees the barrel of the rifle light up on the opposite side of the clearing, even through the thickened fog that coats everything. 

He can’t move, too trapped in the dreadful reality that the Light isn’t here to save him this time, that this’ll be the end, that this will result in him waking up once more with Sundance above him on that fucking cliff in the middle of the night—with bare arms and no scars to speak of other than the ones branded onto his psyche—and then— 

—and then a body slams into his, makes him roll along the ground and blue-tinted mud splatter everywhere. 

Cayde lets out a yowl when something sharp digs into the still-exposed part on his faulty leg and a spasm runs through his entire body. His knee jerks upwards and digs into soft, pliable cloth, something one would normally find on a Warlock, and the answering “_Oomph_” from somewhere above him is enough to confirm. 

That’s a Guardian. 

That’s _the_ Guardian he’s been looking for. 

And above him, when they finally come to a stop on the ground, Tora winces as he climbs off of Cayde, but nonetheless extends a hand to help him up. 

“Come along, Vanguard, let’s scram.” 

The Fallen screeches echo behind the two of them as they scramble away. 

* * *

Thunder crashes outside, briefly lighting up the damp evening air. 

Cayde rubs at the spot on his arm where a stray shock rifle shot had hit him earlier. If it hadn’t been for Tora, that shot would not have missed and he’d be nursing an overloaded chest cavity instead of an aching arm, and Cayde is nothing if not grateful for the timely interruption. 

Tora looks like himself. 

At least, he looks like Cayde remembers him—a savage shock of bright red hair, purple eyes and impeccable fashion sense. Well, the scowl is a new thing, just like the scar stretching its way down the right side of his face from earlobe to chin and the dark purple bruising on practically every bare patch of skin, but other than that it is almost like looking at the Warlock sitting in the middle of the Warlock Halls, surrounded by books. The image would be complete if it weren’t for the fact that the two of them were utterly _soaked_ as well. 

The campfire between the two of them flickers, casts dancing shadows on the walls of the cave they’re huddling in. 

“Rabbit’s ready,” Cayde comments and motions for the meat sizzling above the roaring fire. “You hungry?” 

“I’ll eat in a bit,” Tora grunts. He is bent forwards, elbows resting on his knees, and just carefully running his fingers over the twitching shell of his Ghost. 

“How’s she doin’?” Cayde glances at the Ghost cradled in Tora’s hands. There is the slightest pang of jealousy running through him at the sight of the two of them—whole. _Together_. “She alright?” 

“Mhmm,” Tora nods absentmindedly. His eyes are lost to someplace other than here, staring blankly down at his Ghost. “I just—” 

“You don’t need to explain, kid,” Cayde reassures him with a quick smile. “I understand. Would probably be doin’ the same if it were me in your situation.” 

Tora’s answering smile is just a little bit tentative, but Cayde gets it. He really does. It’s likely that he and Meera will be the only ones to ever understand how he feels about this thing here. 

Letting Sundance out of sight, even for as small a thing as her flying over to speak with Amanda for a few moments, had been a challenge in and of itself from the moment that he began coming back to his own beginning. When he gets her back, he’s likely to just hunker down somewhere for the rest of time itself, just him and his Ghost, together forever. It won’t be responsible, but Cayde has been through enough responsibilities now to last him a lifetime, thank you very much. And he is out of fucks to give. 

“How’d you find me?” 

Tora’s question breaks the comfortable silence that has begun between the two of them. Cayde looks at him from across the campfire and sighs, shrugging his shoulders. 

“I, well, ah…” he searches for the right words to use here. “I got lucky?” 

“Pull the other one, Cayde.” 

Cayde rubs at the back of his head before his hand moves to the base of his horn. “There’s a group of people gathering nearby here. Guardians are with them. They’ve been trying to regroup there.” 

“I’ve seen it from a distance, yeah,” Tora nods. “They saw me?” 

“A few scouts did. Said that they’d seen someone try to get near the Shard for a while now, and I decided to go see what was going on. I got unlucky and stumbled upon that Fallen camp while looking. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead.” 

“Lucky indeed.” 

“Mhmm,” Cayde says absentmindedly, not really looking directly at the Warlock. 

“You’re not stayin’ with them? The people that saw me, I mean,” Tora’s question is followed by another lightning strike, this time much closer to the entrance of the cave. 

“I was,” Cayde shrugs. “Not anymore though. Shit got in the way.” 

“Did you even tell anyone that you left?” 

“Nah, not really. Those in charge know why I left and that is all that matters.” 

Tora narrows his eyes at him. “What’s your plan, then?” 

“Well, step one was gettin’ a hold of you. Hadn’t really gotten past that one.” 

“Sweet,” Tora comments dryly. “Good to know that the Vanguard has yet to give up the fight.” 

“Well, if you know where they are then that would be terrific.” 

“Master Ikora’s on Io. I talked with her before coming back here,” Tora shrugs and pokes at the fire with a stick. “The Commander was on Titan last I checked the official channels.” 

“Where’d you get the ship to go off-planet?” 

“Found a functioning City Hawk and just, y’know, sorta winged it from there on out. Wasn’t difficult sneaking off-planet when most Cabal are stationed in and around the City.” 

“Quick thinking, kid,” Cayde grins and sends a thumb’s up to the Warlock. “I like it.” 

Tora smiles for a moment himself before settling down. The jovial expression on his face turns morose. 

“Meera… have you heard from her? At all?” 

Cayde’s own joviality disappears like a leaf blown around in a hurricane. 

“No,” he manages to get out. “Haven’t heard a word since… well.” 

“I’m worried,” Tora rasps. “She’s out there somewhere, _alone_. If that was me, I’d be terrified beyond anything else.” 

There is a heavy lump stuck in his throat. Swallowing doesn’t help one bit. 

Looking at the ground, Cayde sighs heavily. “I don’t know where she is, but… we need to be prepared for the chance that Meera might not be here anymore.” 

“No. No, that’s not an option,” Tora snarls. He is on his feet in seconds, fingers imbued with flickering Arc energy strong enough to make more than one of Cayde’s processors tingle with the electricity so thick in the air. “It can’t be ending for her that way. I won’t _let it_.” 

“The Speaker once told me… ‘There are rules that even the Traveler must abide, and by proxy, us, its’ servants, as well’. We can’t play gods, Solaris. Now, I ain’t saying that she’s gone, just that we need to be prepared for the possibility.” 

“This isn’t playing gods, Vanguard!” Tora argues vehemently and gestures at him. “I’ve seen you embrace and look at that woman like she hung the fucking Sun, Moon and stars, just for you. So, why aren’t you out there, looking for her?” 

“You think I don’t want to?” 

“If you really wanted to find Mee, then what are you doing _here_? Sitting here in a cave with me won’t really help you there.” 

“I don’t know where to even _start_.” 

“What, you can’t just reverse engineer some of the tech that’s lying around practically everywhere? If the Fallen can cannibalize our tech, why not do the same to them? We can scour most of the known regions, see if something pings on the ship’s sensors!” 

Cayde scowls. “It’s not that easy. Not even our comms has an unlimited battery supply, y’know. We’d be relying on her distress beacons still being active, not to mention being in an area where the reception is good enough for our satellites to pick up the signal. It’d be a wild goose chase, especially since the Cabal have spared no expense in tearing down our communication lines.” 

“It’s damn well better than doing nothing!” 

Now, Cayde doesn’t really have a smart answer ready for _that one_. 

As the silence fills the small cave, Tora’s face twists in a scowl. Neither are saying anything, but he still stands on his feet, glaring down at Cayde. 

“Don’t tell me it’s because that you’re scared, Vanguard. Please don’t make me lose that one last bit of respect that my Ghost insists I have reserved for you,” he spits. 

“I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s just…” 

“What, hopeless? I thought you loved her.” 

“I did,” Cayde agrees, then hesitates for a moment. “I _do_.” 

“Then step up your fucking game and _show it_, Hunter!” 

Cayde looks away. He can’t make himself look at the other Lightbearer right now, it just… it just _hurts_ too much. 

“Where’d you even _start_?” 

“How ‘bout Earth?” the Warlock sneers. “We’re already here, might as well milk it for all we got.” 

“Earth ain’t exactly small, y’know.” 

“The number of places one can hide without tipping off hostile forces, however, is quite small. It’s a simple process of elimination.” 

“See, you say that, but I don’t think you know much about the amount of Hunter Dens that have been scattered across the globe over the centuries.” 

“Then _educate _me.” 

Cayde sighs and scowls as he drags a hand down over his face. This is going to be a long, _long_ comeback. 

* * *

The EDZ, Cayde finds, is utter bullshit. 

People are hunkered down everywhere as apparently more than one person thought to hide out here in the Dead Zone, probably praying that the offcast shard of the Traveler would be enough to shield them from the Cabal overrunning the entire planet. 

Oh, how wrong they’ve all been. 

He and Tora wander through settlement after settlement, finding more than one in smoking ruins with the occasional dead Cabal insinuating just what has gone down here before their arrival. The Hunter Dens that they find are not much better. They are either looted or destroyed, and a small part of Cayde breaks off and dies every time that they find the latter. 

Cayde feels his hands clench into the tightest of fists every time, and Tora is very much the same. 

The Warlock is not like Cayde remembers him. No longer does he smile easily or laugh at the occasional joke. Instead he sits sullenly by the fire at night, holds his weapons tight during the day and never lets his Ghost leave his sight. 

At all. 

And Cayde can’t even blame the poor guy. 

But occasionally they are lucky and find a still-intact gathering of people just struggling to get by and survive. That is usually when Tora and Cayde go their own way for the evening, finding respite in no longer being the sole other person to travel with, and drowning away sorrows in shitty booze and good company. 

Only thing is, the ache doesn’t go away. 

* * *

Between scouring the countryside for any signs of his wayward protégé, tinkering with the cloaking devices waiting to be installed around the Farm’s perimeters—if he ever gets around to actually finish them—and catching up properly with Tora, Cayde almost misses it. 

_Almost._

The night is cool and Cayde lies on the roofing of their latest temporary base, a barn close to the latest small inhabited settlement that they’ve stumbled upon here in the Dead Zone, stargazing in peace. Out here in the middle of the night, with nothing but fluffed clouds and stars above him, it is quite easy to forget that there is a war building out over the horizon. Easy to forget that his Light is missing. 

Alright, that last thing is an utter _lie_, because he has never felt as chilled as he does right now. Losing the Traveler’s Light really has done a number on him, even if it isn’t as easy to spot. 

But then, all sense of harmony, philosophical thinking and quiet is violently disrupted. 

His comm beeps shrilly and insistently for the first time in _months_ and Cayde scrambles to find it inside all of his worn clothing. His fingers snag and tangle in Andal’s cloak, eagerness making him unforgivably clumsy, and inside he cannot help but chant ‘_please oh please, let it be them, let it be Zavala or Ikora or Shaxx or someone, just someone else who has survived, oh please’_

He finally pulls it out. 

Stares. 

The text on the small, glitchy screen might as well be a benediction sent from a higher being. 

_Incoming transmission from... Quill, Meera_

He accepts automatically, fingers going through the familiar motion, not even thinking. 

And Cayde’s breath catches in his throat when the sound of grainy, howling wind can be heard through his comm-device's speakers. 

_“Please, I just... I just want to go home. Cayde, please. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. It’s red, everything is red. My Ghost is gone. It’s so cold. It’s cold and I don’t want to be alone anymore, Cayde. P-please. I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE!”_

Meera. 

That’s... that’s Meera’s voice. 

_Meera’s voice_. 

Holy _shit_, she’s _alive_. 

She is still alive. Out there somewhere in the Universe, but _alive_, and Cayde has to force his fist into his mouth in order to keep the sobs somewhat inaudible. They well up inside of him, presses hard, and he can barely contain the strained noises that he makes in order to not alert anyone nearby. No one knows that he is up here. He’d like to keep it that way. 

But... 

She’s alive. 

She’s alive. 

Meera is _alive_. 

[I just... I just want to go home] 

Her message echoes inside his head. 

She wants to come home. She’s in trouble. 

Meera needs his help. 

[I don’t want to be alone anymore, Cayde] 

No one deserves that. Least of all her, no matter how much they have differed in opinion or rowed. 

[It’s so cold] 

Cayde feels something inside of him _ache_. Some part of him that hasn’t ached since they parted ways more than a year and a half ago. A part of him that hasn’t even stirred since Tora came waltzing back into his life with opinions and solutions. 

He has to. 

He has to _go_. 

And he won’t be alone. 

* * *

Tora does not appear to appreciate being disturbed at fuck o’clock in the middle of the night, and he _certainly_ does not appreciate being interrupted in whatever romp it is he’s got going with one of the cuter technicians. 

“What the fuc—_Cayde_!” the Awoken roars as he wraps both himself and the woman sitting on top of him in the flimsy sheet used as bedding. “_Get out_, you asshole!” 

“We don’t have time,” Cayde bulldozes right across the small room, kicking a pair of discarded, mud-covered boots to the side in the process. He bends down just long enough to locate and grab what he assumes is a pair of pants before throwing them at the flustered pair in bed. “I need you up and at’em, Guardian. As in, _now_.” 

“What the actual fuck?!” Tora seethes as he straps himself into the pair of leggings that Cayde has thrown in his direction. “I am in the middle of something.” 

“Don’t have time,” Cayde simply repeats and fishes his comm out from his breast-pocket. He flips it up and down a few times for emphasis. “Quill made contact.” 

Now, for as long as Cayde has known—not to mention, met—Tora, he has always seemed like a pretty collected guy, who always knew where he stood and what he wanted and how to act in pretty much all situations. 

But this time? 

Cayde has never seen someone recover from _coitus interruptus_ as fast as this one. 

In seconds he has the poor girl in his bed bundled up in the bedsheets before marching straight up to Cayde and dragging him outside. Behind them, Cayde can hear the woman’s confused calls for Tora, but the Warlock doesn’t even stop to answer. 

And the two of them don’t stop until they’re well out of the barrack’s hearing distance, half-hidden in the forest. The moon above is peeking through the trees and illuminating everything in silver, even the ghostly trails of light that whisper across Tora’s blue-tinted skin. 

“What do you mean with ‘Quill made contact’?” Tora bites out, arms crossed as he stares directly at Cayde. His eyes are burning. “Where is she?” 

“I dunno,” Cayde spits back at him and throws the comm. Tora catches it without trouble. “Play the last message.” 

He does. 

_“Please, I just... I just want to go home. Cayde, please. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. It’s red, everything is red. My Ghost is gone. It’s so cold. It’s cold and I don’t want to be alone anymore, Cayde. P-please. I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE!”_

Tora goes still. Absolutely still. 

His mouth opens and closes with no sound coming out of there. He swallows, but it is inaudible. But there are tears in his eyes and the weakest of a budding smile as he hears his dearest friend’s words, however grainy and terrified they might be. 

“Where is she?” he repeats, much quieter and somber this time. “She doesn’t say here.” 

“She says that it’s red.” 

“Mars?” 

“Maybe. But she could be anywhere.” 

“Plenty of places, and not just planets, with red on them, yeah,” Tora nods. Cayde can practically _see_ his mind go a mile a minute. “What will you do?” 

“Go out there,” Cayde says. “Find her. Bring her _home_.” 

“I thought you didn’t see eye to eye.” 

“_No one_ deserves to be alone. Least of all, one of us. Not after what happened with the City.” 

Tora looks at him with wide, wonderous eyes. It almost looks as if there is a sense of hope that comes over him. 

“You still love her.” 

_Of course I do_

“None of your damn business, Warlock.” 

But Tora smirks now. A terrible, vindictive smirk that speaks of mischief and ruin to whomever crosses its owner. 

“You motherfucker,” he whispers and takes a few steps forward. Cayde is by no means a pushover, but the Warlock in front of him is 6’8” and built like a brick shithouse. He ain’t taking no chances best avoided. “You absolute _asshole_!” 

“Care to elaborate on that?” Cayde snarks and barely has time to breathe before Tora’s fist is wrapped up in the front of his cloak and he is dragged right up close and personal to the Awoken’s face. 

“You love her and yet you’re still makin’ excuses. _Why_?” 

Cayde swallows. “I don’t know where she is.” 

“Bullshit. Try again.” 

“I need help locating her and you’re the only one I know with a functioning Ghost. Care to help get something out of this damn thing already?” 

“You’re really testin’ my patience here, Vanguard,” Tora snarls and his grip around Cayde’s scarf and cloak-fastening tightens. “Get. _Goin’_.” 

Once more, Cayde swallows heavily. He looks down, stares at the hand right up in his face, and sighs. 

“I need your damn help, alright? This whole situation here, with Meera, I mean… it’s gone to shit.” 

“Yeah, I do have eyes, y’know?” Tora narrows his eyes. 

“So, please?” Cayde looks up at him. “Will you please help me find Meera?” 

Tora’s face says it all. 

* * *

Tora’s Ghost works for _hours_. 

Alongside the Warlock, Cayde helps as well as he possibly can, offering places and locations on every planet, moon or asteroid that he knows of. But places that have red on them are, surprisingly enough, not exactly easy to come by. 

“Alright, so we’ve got Mars and that centaur that you mentioned, Nessus, right?” 

“Mhmm,” Cayde nods and scribbles down a few notes on a piece of paper he’s found at the bottom of his backpack. He circles ‘_Meera_’ and underlines her name several times before making lines sticking out from the main circle. At the end of two of the lines he writes ‘_Mars_’ and ‘_Nessus_’ before looking over at Tora. “You got any ideas?” 

“I’m tempted to say Jupiter, but what she’d do on one of the moons out there is anyone’s guess.” 

“It’s too far out from the Light,” Cayde shakes his head. “And besides, the signal wouldn’t have been able to reach me from Jupiter’s orbit. The radiation out there is too strong for most transmissions to get through, even when the Cabal aren’t fucking with our toys.” 

“So where else is there?” 

“Someplace further in, probably on this side of the asteroid belt if I had to take an educated guess.” 

“What, like Mercury?” 

“Light above, I hope not,” Cayde winces. The implications that she would have gone to _Mercury_ of all places, with the Almighty feeding off of the planet’s crust and core, are _terrifying_. He’ll have to lie instead. “Too sunny. She’d never go there.” 

“True enough,” Tora readily agrees, thankfully. “Her affinity as a Nightstalker would act up, maybe.” 

“Not maybe. I _know_ that would happen. It’s happened to Hunters in the past.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, really. Nightstalkers get grouchy when they’re that close to the Sun for prolonged periods. Now all that’s really out ‘round Mercury’s parts are the Osiris disciples.” 

“You think they’ve survived this?” 

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t, honestly. They’re real devoted to him, y’know. Actually, did you ever meet Osiris?” 

Tora shuffles awkwardly. “I, ah, did. Not really a fan of him, to be honest.” 

“What, too much doomsaying?” 

“Something like that, yeah.” 

“Well, I ain’t judgin’,” Cayde says and shrugs before looking down at the paper in front of him. “But none of this also isn’t really bringin’ us any closer to figure out where Meera could _be_.” 

Tora’s Ghost is little help as she keeps scanning the comm device. Whatever it was out there that helped Meera’s distress call come through is scarcely traceable, with only the barest of hints left behind in the systems that data has passed through. The only thing that is undeniable, however, is that the signal came from somewhere relatively close by, which can only mean one thing.

She has to be on one of the inner planets. 

“Cayde, when she left, did Meera say… well, did she mention something that might have held interest for her to explore? The edges of the System, maybe? Or, I don’t know, scurrying around in the Reef?” 

Cayde frowns. She… well, it’s been over a year, but he still remembers that last conversation that the two of them had—or rather, the spectacular fuckup of an argument that the two of them exploded into before her disappearance. 

“She didn’t really have a lot of extracurricular activities, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know what else to tell ya.” 

“I know that she spent a lot of time down in the archives, especially in the sections detailing big events that happened in the City’s past. Did she really not tell you _anything_? I thought you were fucki—” 

Cayde slaps a hand over Tora’s mouth before he can continue that particular line of thought because, _what the fuck_, but then there is a beat where everything is quiet as Tora’s question actually registers to him and if he were an organic, Cayde is pretty fucking sure that he’d be pale as a damn sheet right now.

As white as the tops of the fucking Himalayas. 

She couldn’t have. Going _there_ would have been insane as it is, and how would she even have gotten the information to know where to go? 

No. 

No, she couldn’t have. 

She _couldn’t_. 

“Cayde?” Tora is speaking but it is almost as if he is underwater and can’t quite hear what is being said to him. “Cayde, dude, are you alright?” 

If Meera is where he thinks that she is, if she really is stupid enough to go straight to the source of so many of the City’s old problems, then she might as well be a lost cause, but now they have a potential location at least, and that is the most important thing right now. 

“Cayde!” 

He snaps back into the here and now and looks over at Tora. Whatever the Warlock sees in his optics are enough for him to snap his mouth shut and wait for whatever words Cayde is about to spew out. 

“I need to talk with someone back at the Farm,” Cayde says and swallows. His voice module is beginning to squeak ever so slightly. “_Now_.” 

* * *

“SHAXX!” 

Cayde’s voice cuts through the chatter on the Farm and the Titan turns around almost immediately. He raises a hand in greeting and receives one in return as Cayde cuts straight through the mass of people, Tora following behind wordlessly. 

He’s been ridiculously fretting ever since Cayde’s minor meltdown a few days ago, poking at Cayde in way too many different ways in order to needle out the damn answers

“Hunter Vanguard,” the Crucible handler crosses his arms and looks Cayde over. “I see you return. With friends, it seems.” 

“Picked up a certain someone,” Cayde jerks a thumb behind him in the general direction of Tora. His voice module raises the pitch of his voice ever so slightly by the end of that sentence. “Thought I’d stop by.” 

“Is there something you need?” 

“There is. Thing is though, can we… uh, talk in a place a bit more private, maybe?” 

The helmet covers Shaxx’s face, but Cayde can practically _see_ the raised eyebrow. It’s not exactly as if the words ‘Cayde’ and ‘private’ normally coexist together in blessed harmony. 

“Certainly. This way,” Shaxx says after a few tense seconds. He goes to Arcite and says something, probably instructions on how to handle things while he’s away, and then leads Cayde and Tora further into the barn. They come to a stop behind a pair of stacked crates that look like they’re a few scant moments from tumbling over with the slightest provocation. Shaxx waits for the two of them before crossing his arms and looking them over. “So, what can I help you with? I take it that this is no visit with pleasantries in mind.” 

Well, Cayde, no time like the present, so up and at’em... 

“I need to know where on Venus you hunted down and slew the Ahamkara.” 

Tora makes a noise more akin to a dying animal than a humanoid as Shaxx visibly tenses. His hands clench just a little bit harder. Other than that, there is no outward sign that he is listening. 

“Excuse me?” 

Tora is still just gaping at him from the side, but Cayde is barely even paying attention to the other man right now as he instead stares straight at the Crucible handler in front of him. 

“There is a very good reason why that information has been struck from the official records, Vanguard,” Shaxx says softly. His helmet turns just the slightest bit to both sides, no doubt checking to make sure that no one is listening in on this conversation. “What is this all about?” 

“I can’t tell you, Shaxx,” Cayde says, weary. It feels as if he has aged a thousand years in mere moments. That he has to lie to a colleague, even if they haven’t always seen eye to eye, just about puts the icing on the cake. “I just need you to trust me on this.” 

“You realize how dangerous it would be to go back there, then?” Shaxx asks—no, _demands_—and Cayde nods because angering Strikers are not part of a healthy work ethic. “You have silver?” 

“No, not on me at the moment, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to find _something_.” 

“Talk with one of the Hunters out in the large field behind here,” Shaxx grunts. “One of the older scouts, Shaw Han, I believe his name is. The man is _covered_ in gear dating all the way back to the Hunt. If anything, he should have some supplies stashed away somewhere.” 

Cayde nods. The name is slightly familiar—he recalls a human, cocky grin and cheeky attitude—before turning to look at Tora. “Alright, Guardian, time to put your persuasive talents to use. Go see if you can fleece the guy for every bit of silver he knows or has. We’ll need it.” 

The Warlock swallows as his eyes keep darting from Cayde to Shaxx and then back to Cayde again. 

“We are _so _talking about this afterwards!” he hisses, furious. But even so he stomps off, muttering beneath his breath as he stalks out of the barn. 

“You hadn’t told him why you’re going to Venus, I take it.” A statement. Not a question. 

“It’s a sensitive subject matter. If the Commander finds out about this he’ll have my head.” 

“You better hope that he doesn’t find out then,” Shaxx lets out a dry chuckle. “Word is that Zavala and Ikora are both en route from their hiding places to here. Looks like we’ll have an assault on the City planned out soon enough. If you want this to succeed, you won’t have long.” 

“Good to know.” 

“You don’t sound ecstatic.” 

“It’s been a rough few weeks,” Cayde grumbles and scratches at the base of his horn. He is self-soothing like it’s no one’s business, so sue him. The way that he can feel Shaxx’s scrutiny is just a bit unnerving. “And this isn’t… fuck, but this isn’t good, Shaxx.”

“Who’s out there?”

“A Guardian, if what we caught from Cabal transmissions are true.”

_Technically_ not a lie as he and Tora actually _have _picked up quite a bit of transmissions as they’ve begun traveling together.

“A Guardian on Venus? And you think that they—”

“It’s a chance. A chance that I’m not willing to take.”

Shaxx’s hand lands on Cayde’s shoulder and squeezes. “I trust that you know what to do if it is too late.”

“I hope to the Traveler that it won’t be.”

“As do I.”

Silence stretches out between the two of them. Behind the crates Cayde can hear the workers of the Farm going about their day, fixing whatever needs fixing, but he stays where he is—waiting.

And then. 

“Aphrodite Terra,” Shaxx finally grits out. He sounds like he is clenching his teeth. “The majority of the Hunts ended on Aphrodite Terra, near the northern hills. A lot of forest out there, the clearings were where most of the Hunts ended. You cannot miss it.”

“How so?”

Shaxx’s gaze is heavy, even through the helmet. “The whispers will get to you before you even land.”

“Ah,” Cayde swallows. Such verbal skills that he is demonstrating right now. “I see.”

“The skeletons remain as well. We never did—they were not easy to destroy. So we let them be.”

“Haven’t yet found something that a bit of explosives couldn’t take care of,” Cayde chuckles and for a moment Shaxx joins in before both of them sober up.

“You have a Guardian to find, Vanguard,” the Crucible handler says and stands to his full, rather impressive height. “Best get to it.”

“Aye-aye, Warlord,” Cayde gives the much larger man a snappy salute before he turns on his heel and marches out, lips pressed thin and his mind racing a thousand miles a minute.

Fuck’s sake, why can’t things be easy, just for _once_ in his life?

* * *

Tora gets the damn silver, big surprise.

He saunters back into the ship they’ve hidden a fair bit away from the Farm and startles when he sees Cayde sit in the cockpit, staring blankly at the Shard of the Traveler looming in the distance. Cayde only turns his head enough to briefly take in Tora before his head turns back into the same position.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

The Warlock's question has Cayde turn around once more, looking straight at him.

"Hmm?"

"About Meera? About Venus and why we have to actually go there?"

"Ah... that."

"Yeah, _that_."

Tora is looking furious, not that Cayde can blame the guy. He'd be pissed as well, had the roles been reversed. 

"I, ah... honestly, I don't know. I wasn't really thinking that far ahead."

"It shows."

"Thanks."

Tora scowls. "That wasn't a compliment, Vanguard."

"I'm choosing to see it as one, however," Cayde sniffs before turning around to look straight ahead once more. "It's easier if I keep deluding myself, you see."

"Tough shit," Tora spits from somewhere behind him. "I deserve to know."

"Do you now?"

"She's _my_ Fireteam-member!"

"And she's my—"

"Your _what_, exactly?" Tora interrupts and Cayde scowls from where he sits, huddled in the cockpit seat. "Your lover? Your friend? What exactly _is_ Mee to you, Vanguard?"

Silence stretches the space between them.

"She's..." Cayde fumbles. "She's my everything."

"Good," Tora snarls. "Then start fucking _acting_ like it, asshole."

More silence now, only broken now and then by the soft, metallic noises coming from the armor pieces that Tora is busy packing away at.

“Do you think I’ll need it?”

“Need what?” Tora looks up from where he is beginning to pack down braces and shoulder pads imbedded with enough silver to fuel a small goldsmith.

“The Light,” Cayde elaborates. He fiddles with one of the knives sheathed on his person and points the handle at the Shard. “D’you think I should go to the Shard? Get back the Light like you did?”

Tora is quiet for several moments. At least long enough for Cayde to turn around in the cockpit chair and _look_ at the Awoken.

“I…” Tora hesitates. He frowns and with a gesture his Ghost appears in a burst of Light, hovering above his palm. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Cayde parrots, dumbly.

Tora just shrugs, traces of anger still remaining from the way that Cayde is watching his shoulders tense up now and then. “Yeah, I don’t know, alright? It’s not as if I’ve had this happen to me a million times before, y’know.”

Cayde lets out a pained noise at that particular comment.

“But I wouldn’t…” Tora continues. “The Light that I got from the Shard isn’t… I mean, it’s the _Light_, but it isn’t… the _real_ Light, if you get what I mean.”

“It’s a substitute, you mean?”

Tora nods. “Yeah. It feels like the Light and it smells like the Light and it sounds like the Light, but at the same time it… isn’t.”

“How do you mean?”

At this question Tora groans and puts down the armor pieces in his hands. “Fuck, I don’t know, it just—you know how each Guardian has their affinity, right? Like, I’m pretty nifty with Arc, just like Zalli was, and Mee’s a damn nightmare with the Void? It’s like that. Kind of. Sort of. I—it’s like, you’re playing the same music that you’ve been rehearsing for _months_, but your instrument is tuned differently and so your sound is just the slightest bit off? Does—I mean, am I even making sense right now with all of this?”

“Yeeees?” Cayde stretches out the word. “I mean, kind of? What I’m gettin’ here is that _no_, I should definitely not go there and ask the creepy Shard of alien who-knows-what for fancy powers.”

“No,” Tora agrees. “Definitely not.”

Cayde nods. “Right. Good. Nice having this chat with you.”

Tora narrows his eyes at him and Cayde, to his credit, does his very best to look earnest here, he really does.

“You’re not going to…”

“Wha—_fuck no_, I’m risky, not fucking suicidal. I like my Light whole and real, thank you very much.”

“Right, right,” the Warlock mumbles and goes back to packing away the silvered armor pieces he’s gotten his grubby hands on.

Cayde goes back to playing with his knife.

And yet.

And yet Cayde’s eyes cannot help but stray back to the Shard, jutting up and over the tree line like a king above peasants. Ominous. Dangerous.

_Well, Hell_, he thinks morosely and sheathes the knife. _Easier to beg forgiveness than permission, right?_

* * *

This… this was a stupid fucking idea.

“‘Go back to the Traveler’s Shard, Cayde’. ‘It’ll be easy-peasy lemon squeezy, Cayde’,” he mutters angrily as he climbs above a grassy knoll. The swaying, luminescent flowers boop gently in the still air, moved by some invisible force that is slowly, but surely, choking the very life out of everything around it. Cayde hates all of it.

He straight up hates it.

Honestly, the only thing that has actually gone _well_ for him so far is the fact that he hasn’t run into any Fallen as of yet, and also that he managed to sneak away from Tora in the middle of the night.

When he comes back there is going to be Hell to pay, for sure. Solaris is going to skin him alive, or at least do the equivalent of skinning an Exo, and if Meera was here she would probably—

Well, what _would_ she do?

She had gone here in that first timeline, hadn’t she? Come out a conquering, flaming hero too, if Cayde isn’t completely wrong.

But she had never said anything about the Light feeling, well, _off_, for lack of a better word. And even if she had felt like that back then, by the time that they’d won the City back from the Cabal and gotten a hold of the Light once more, everybody had been too giddy off of victory and the Light itself to even ask questions about how some of the Guardians actually got their Light back prematurely in the first place.

He sure could have used her previous experience right now.

The rest of the trip through the Blackened Woods is done is almost complete silence. There is a steady pulse coming from the pouch where Sundance is kept in, but Cayde does his very best to ignore it. He can’t be going around getting his hopes up if this whole thing is doomed to fail spectacularly, so instead he holds the pouch in his hand and mutters a quick prayer to the Light, to the Traveler, to whoever listens.

And then he’s there.

Finally.

Standing in front of the Shard. Standing as close to the Light as he did back in the beginning when he was sick and tired of seeing Andal die again and again and _again and again_.

The Light sizzles, stretches out towards anything within reach of its aura of influence. This close it feels almost like vertigo to stand here, breathing in the scent of wet, _living_, forest and the almost ozone-like taste of the Light’s energy wafting off of the Shard in droves.

For a moment it is almost like he is hearing whispers again, the same kind of foggy daze settles over him, but then he shakes his head and pinches the plates between his optics, tries desperately to focus. The pinching helps, just a little bit.

But he can’t keep stalling. Above him, the moon is rising, and it won’t be long before he needs to make his way back if he wants to be on the ship by early morning at the latest. Hell’s bell’s, Solaris is going to fuck him up for doing this.

“I need it back,” he wheezes. The vertigo from earlier is back with a _vengeance_ and for a moment it’s almost like he can’t breathe. “Please… t-the Light—I—I can’t—” 

A warm pulse emits from the Shard and Cayde cuts himself off. With a trembling hand he presses against the Shard’s smooth surface, breathing heavily. Being so close to the Light, even if it is twisted and not-quite-pure, feels like the best rush he has had in a long, _long_ while. The pulse is steady and warming, helps him feel the echoes of solar energy stolen from him, and he relishes it. 

“I need the Light,” he repeats and now presses both hands and his forehead against the shell of the Shard. “I can’t save her without it, so _please_. Let me have this one thing. _Please_.” 

Another pulse.

Cayde feels it. It’s like something is hovering just there at the edges of his mind, _just barely_ out of reach, and even if he stretches to his tippy-toes, he still won’t be able to get his hands on it.

“_Please_…”

He can’t fail. Not in this. Not now, after everything he’s done—everything he and Meera both have suffered.

He can’t fail her now.

“_PLEASE_!”

And Cayde’s world is filled with _Light_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts are always welcome :)


	17. Meera VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> potential warning: brief moment where a character experiences the beginnings of a panic attack

The crystals are back.

But no, they’re _not_—Meera blinks and finds herself surrounded by cold, blue ice.

Did she—?

_[What do you Wish for, child?]_

That voice from before echoes inside her head, whispers and caresses the back of her mind like the gentlest of lovers. No. She is certain that she didn’t do it. She didn’t. She couldn’t have. Doing that—_Wishing_—is something that she would never—

_Wouldn’t you? _A small treacherous part of her whispers. _Would you really refrain, even if it brought you Salvation?_

“I would,” she whispers, desperate to believe it herself. Her breath turns to mist as she sits here on the ground. “I can say no.”

Just there, on the other side of the ice, sits the skeleton. She _knows_ that it does. She can feel it reaching out, dragging its’ wretched fingers across her mind, and Meera wraps around herself as best she can in the limited space that she has.

She needs to remain like this, clearheaded and _aware_, instead of tucked away somewhere behind fog and confusion. Just. Just long enough for help to arrive, long enough for someone to snap up her distress call across the old Vanguard channels and figure out her location. Someone has to have heard her, she _knows_ that she let the message out across all of the channels she has gotten access to—illegally or otherwise—over the years in service as a Guardian. And yet, just like that, the world shrinks in around because what if _no one_ finds her? What if they miss her message? What if it is the Cabal instead of the Guardians who gets her message and finds her and takes her away?

Her breathing picks up, spits out erratically as the fear and dread begins to set in. Because they _can’t_. They _can’t_ do that. She can’t leave, not now when she’s finally found the damn Ahamkara, not now when all she needs is figure out a way to—

_[What is it that you **WISH **for, child?]_

The ice sparkles. It is opaque and glittering and _so very beautiful_.

Mist gathers at the ground, snakes its way up her body and envelops her. The tell-tale daze from before prickles at the edges of her mind, warns her of what is to come, and Meera lets loose a howl as she beats against the ice.

The mist will take her away—it’s going to do something to her, take her away from here, kill her, choke the life from her, do _something_ and she can’t let it. She _can’t_, because Cayde is relying on her to be strong enough to hold on. She needs to hold on, she _has_ _to_, she can’t fail at this when she has finally come to far and not _now_—

The mist covers her eyes and all of the tension in her body _disappears_.

Meera settles. Her hands are still clenched into tight fists and rests against the blue-tinted ice. But she feels none of it.

She _sees_ none of it.

_It could be yours_, that same voice from before beckons her closer, wants her to touch the ice, feel it beneath her fingertips without gloves or air or anything else between them. _It should be yours, Young Wolf_

It should, shouldn’t it?

It _should_ be hers.

Cayde’s hands settles on her shoulders and Meera breathes a sigh of relief now that he is here again. The fog is brought with him as she slowly settles down, as her rapidly beating heart slows, and the turmoil inside her head settles.

“You could use it,” Cayde says and gives her a cheeky grin. Meera automatically returns the smile, albeit slightly more hesitantly than before. “Use it against Uldren. The prat will never see _that one_ comin’, don’cha think?”

“It’s not the Light.”

“So?” Cayde raises a brow plate and looks down at her. For a moment it feels like she is looking into the eyes of a _giant_. “Should it matter?”

At that, Meera frowns. Because that right there isn't... Cayde would _never_ say something like that.

“I am… of the Light, Cayde. You are too.”

“The Light’s gone, sweetcheeks,” he says and shakes his head. He disappears from view in front of her and then he is right behind her. A hand caresses her sides through torn armor and metallic fingers settle on her hips as his chin comes to a rest on top of her shoulder. “You don’t need something that’s gone, do you?”

“_You’re_ gone.”

“Oh, Meera,” Cayde whispers and he appears in front of her to pull her in for a kiss. When he pulls back, she can taste electricity and ice as the skin on her lips freeze. “It’s never been the Light that kept pulling on your soul. At first it was the Void, wasn’t it? And now, out there in the depths of space, you found the Darkness. You _found it_, Mee.”

She hesitates once more. There is _something_ that nags at the back of her mind, something that tells her _no_, that she _shouldn’t_, but he’s right there…

“I shouldn’t…”

Cayde’s eyes narrow. The hands on her shoulders—so gentle—instead now _digs_ into her flesh.

“Every moment that you hesitate is a moment where anything could kill me. You know this. Why is it that you hesitate? Do you not love me anymore? Do you want me dead?”

Meera balks at the suggestion.

“You’re wrong!” she pleads, throwing herself forward but Cayde is gone and she collides with the ice. The crystals settling on her skin grows. “I _do_ love you!”

“Then **prove** it.”

And Cayde shoves her forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isn't the ice just _beautiful_, o reader mine?__


	18. Cayde IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think ishtar collective is my new permanent residence with the amount of time i have spent on that fucking website

Cayde sits in front of the Shard for what feels like _hours_.

He simply sits there, legs crossed, and cradles the shell of Sundance in his hands as if she is made of the finest porcelain and not hardened alloys and lacquer.

Her shell pulses every now and then, reminding him of the time just before a Ghost wakes from their low-power state. Maybe if he just waits a little while longer, he will get to see her awaken, he’ll get to greet Sundance once more and then—

Her shell twitches and Cayde stiffens.

For a moment he dares not even breathe as he feels her twist and turn in this and that direction, as her chassis gets hotter and hotter there in the cradle of his hands, but he does not let go. She has gone through Hell and back for him time and time again… he can handle a little bit of pain.

Alright, maybe a bit more than just a little bit of pain.

But then—

“Whoa there, t-that was… eurgh, _so_ _weird_!”

There, floating in the air right in front of him, hovers Sundance.

She shudders, as if cold, and her backfins rotate as she takes in her surroundings. Cayde says nothing as he just follows her with his eyes, never straying away from her form for even a moment, and swallows audibly. Sundance turns around in midair and finally, _finally_, looks at him.

“_Cayde_!”

He has never heard a Ghost on the verge of crying before, and he knows that Ghosts can’t really cry, but it doesn’t stop him from gently cupping his hands around Sundance’s shell when she shoots straight towards him and burrows into his ragged scarf. Her shell rotates and she emits a series of chirps that sounds eerily like mechanical sobbing, and Cayde croons back at her. He runs the gentlest of fingers across her backfins and basks in the waves of Solar energy that come off of her. For what feels like an _eternity_, Cayde finally feels warmth. Actual, proper warmth that has him wiggle his toes in his boots and sigh in delight.

“Sundance,” he forces out through the newly-formed lump in his throat. He can feel the phantom ache of tears pressing behind his optics. Damn human habits. “You’re back. Sundance, you’re _back_!”

She burrows closer, as if she wants to become a part of his synth-skin, but Cayde simply lets another happy noise out of his voicebox as he curls up around her on the ground. He leans against the Shard, feels it pulse with that strange almost-pseudo-but-not-quite-right-or-wrong Light. He is here. She is here. Sundance is right here with him, finally back where she belongs, and all is right in the world once more.

Above the Blackened Forest the Sun rises, paints the sky a million different shades of oranges, pinks and purples.

And, of course, that is also when his comm crackles to life.

“_Cayde-6, I swear to the fucking Light, I am going to rip you to pieces if you’re not on this ship within the next hour, or so help me, Traveler, I will—_”

Yeah, all is right as it should be.

* * *

Solaris is _furious_.

“Have you gone _insane_?!” he roars loud enough for the inside of the ship to echo and throw his voice around.

“Not since last I checked, no,” Cayde shakes his head, completely absorbed in watching Sundance buzz around and take in everything around her. She never strays too far away from where Cayde stands, leaning against the ship like he never even left. “‘Dance, come ’ere.”

She is at his side in a flash, nuzzling into one of the folds in his scarf, and Cayde watches as Tora visibly deflates at the sight of her. His eyes go from smoldering with fury to a look of resignation instead. His own Ghost huddles close as well, resting on top of his shoulder and looking, for all intents and purposes, like a small, round cat enjoying a bit of respite.

“I can’t even completely blame you…” Tora sighs and caresses his own Ghost with the tip of a finger. “I’d probably have done the same if our positions had been reversed.”

“She’s back. That’s all that matters.”

“But it _isn’t_, Cayde,” Tora says and shakes his head. “You don’t… the Light that we each carry, it isn’t…”

“It isn’t _the_ Light, Solaris. I’m well aware.”

“It’s still so very different, Cayde. You might not have the same abilities as before.”

“We’ll take that when or if we get there.”

“It’s a question of _when_, Cayde. Don’t think for a moment that it isn’t.”

“Like I said,” Cayde repeats, terse. “We’ll take that when we get there.”

Tora does not look happy. He looks like he would much rather tackle Cayde to the ground, drag him back to the Shard like a petulant child, and then force him to give up what he’s just gotten back, rather than let him stay as he is right now.

“I’m doing this for her. For _Meera_.”

“Yeah, I gathered that, you idiot,” Tora snaps at him and his hands clench into fists. “But I kind of need you alive for her. If you drop dead from, oh, I dunno, Light poisoning, or some shit like that, what am I going to tell her? ‘Hey there, Mee, yeah so your maybe-still-boyfriend got a dose of tainted Light and is lying dead on the ground somewhere in the EDZ.’. Do you actually take the time to _use_ that giant brain of yours that Clovis Bray somehow ensured you got a hold of?”

“Probably not in the way that they actually wanted me to use it,” Cayde comments wryly. He keeps on petting Sundance. “Now, do you want to continue bitching over this or do you want to get out there and get your Fireteam member back?”

Tora’s face turns the most curious magenta color spreading from his neck and up at Cayde’s question. Cayde just looks at him, smirks, and then plants his ass in the pilot’s seat, preparing for takeoff.

“This isn’t _over_!” Tora snarls behind him.

Cayde rolls his shoulders and lets his fingers wrap around the steering controls. “Yeah, yeah—you keep sayin’ that, Solaris.”

The wrench that flies from somewhere behind him and collides with his head hurts like Hell, sure, but he deserves it.

“Shut your damn hole and get us to Venus.”

* * *

Solaris’ ship is barely holding together—miserable scrap bucket that it is—and the snail-paced trip is spent switching between sitting in the pilot’s seat and holed up in the miniscule bit of space left between all of the supplies. Cayde would hate it if it wasn’t because he’s spent way too many hours stuck in tight spaces when he still had the freedom to go where he pleased. That he has Sundance to cuddle with helps as well, of course.

“What happened, Cayde?”

The two of them are curled up in a cocoon of fleece blankets and Andal’s cloak. Sundance rests on his chest, snuggled into some of the folds between the blankets, and Cayde’s arms are lazily arranged around her in a semicircle. It’s nice—cozy, even.

“Hmm?” he looks down at her and runs his fingers across her shell with the gentlest of movements. “What?”

“After the Light was gone,” she elaborates and snuggles further into the blankets. “What happened to you?”

“Went to Europe. Had all them refugees, yeah?”

“You didn’t go to Nessus?” she asks softly. It’s quiet enough that their voices are being overwhelmed by the whirr of the engines around and below them.

“Nah,” Cayde shakes his head and smiles. “Didn’t want to, honestly. I didn’t know what to do, ‘Dance, so I just sorta went with the flow.”

“What about Failsafe?”

“Oh, I’m sure Solaris’ll get out there at some point. If only because I tell’im there’s something interestin’ out there.”

“I’ve never met her, but she sounds like a hoot.”

“Who? Failsafe?”

“Yup,” Sundance chirps and if a Ghost could smile, Cayde is sure that she would be doing that right now. “She sounds fun from what I’ve seen in your memories.”

“Sure, she was… when the mood was right.”

“You’re just saying that because she wasn’t helpful in getting you out of that teleportation loop.”

Cayde snorts. Yeah, that’s probably it. Traveler’s crack, he’ll never forget that ever-continuing sense of nausea that came over him when he was stuck there on Nessus.

Fuck the Vex.

Just… _fuck’em_.

“But what now?”

“Now we go to Venus, get Meera and then we go home.”

“To the Farm?”

“Until she’s recovered enough, yes. I can’t think that prolonged loss of Light is good on the fleshies.”

Sundance’s eye narrows, as if she is disappointed in him. She probably is, if he’s being honest here for a moment.

“Solaris!” Cayde hollers, his voice _juuust_ loud enough to be heard over the engines. “When’s ETA?”

“A few more hours!” is the reply after a few muttered curses. “If the ship holds, that is.”

“_WHAT_?!”

“I said, if the—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard ya the first time!”

“Then why did you—”

“I’m just _messin_’ with ya!”

Tora curses up a storm and Cayde cackles.

If he’s stuck here for an unknown number of hours, he’s going to have fun, whether it is on another’s expense or not.

* * *

When they finally hover over Venus in the middle of space, both Guardians looking down upon the planet spinning lazily far, far beneath them, that is when the reality of what they are about to do really sinks in.

“You got the silver?” Tora asks as he turns away and begins going through the crate of equipment.

There really is everything from silver-lined Warlock Bonds to delicately engraved vambraces for Hunters and everything in between. The fact that Shaw has had all of this stuffed away somewhere boggles the mind, and yet at the same time Cayde can’t really stop being a bit proud of the fact that his little duckies are keeping the rumors about Hunters being hoarder nerds well alive.

Because some of them just are and there is not anything to be done about that.

If something’s interesting, and pretty—can’t forget the pretty factor—then it should be kept, at least until it’s been hauled past the Cryptarchs and been given a value.

Hey, it’s how he found the casing for his Ace of Spades. Cayde _loves_ looking through junk.

“This is way too gaudy, even for me,” Cayde scoffs as he picks up a pair of boots designed for someone much smaller and daintier than his Exo frame. “Jeez Louise…”

“Good thing you’re not wearing that, then,” Tora grumbles and grabs the clothing out of Cayde’s grasp. “It’s for Meera, asshat. My Ghost has been working on it since we took off.”

“Ah.”

Quick thinking from Solaris’ side, Cayde’ll give him that. And also disregarding the blatant disrespect for a superior officer, of course, given these trying times.

“Any of you got a read on Mee’s distress beacon?”

“Yup,” Sundance does a loop in the air. “There’s a small area over around Aphrodite Terra is giving off the energy that matches that call you got back on Earth, Cayde. It’s near the Battlegrounds.”

“You were there?” Tora asks, sounding just a mite bit interested. “I didn’t know that you were there, Cayde.”

“I wasn’t,” Cayde shakes his head. “I spent my time as far away from that bullshit as I possibly could. Weren’t no chance in Hell that I’d go anywhere near those overgrown lizards. No siree.”

“Then why is Sundance—”

“I was around after the whole thing went down. Cayde and Andal were over in the Ishtar region for something, I don’t really remember what it was, and I decided to go exploring. It was a bloodbath.”

“You let her go off on her own?”

“Sure,” Cayde shrugs. “She’s capable. If anything were to happen I’d have known, and ‘Dance is smart enough to know when it’s time to haul ass back to wherever the Ghosts go when they ain’t out here with us.”

“Exactly,” Sundance chirps and nuzzles against Cayde’s hood. “My Guardian gets it, see?”

“It was a risk. An unnecessary one as far as I can tell,” Tora grumbles. “But you’re still here, so…”

“So _nothin_’,” Cayde says, curtly. “Now, let’s go and get this damn show on the road, yeah?”

“As you say, _Sir_.”

Tora takes over the controls and steers them down through the atmosphere. Almost immediately the stench of sulfuric acid permeates the air within the ship and Cayde can barely hold back the gag. It’s instinctual, so sue him. And besides, it’s been _ages_ since he was here on Venus. He cannot rightly be blamed for nearly heaving after not having smelled that Light-awful atmosphere for years, right?

“Be careful, both of you,” Tora’s Ghost peaks out between the folds in her Guardian’s robes near his neck. “You’re decked out in silver, but it will only stall the whispers. The longer you’re down there, the louder they’ll be.”

“I know,” Tora answers, quietly.

Cayde glances at the Awoken man. Subtly, of course.

There is a sheen of sweat that is making his forehead glisten, and a look in his eyes that Cayde only knows too well. Guilt. There is guilt swimming around in those purple eyes of Tora’s, and it’s probably not even deserved, if Cayde is guessing it all right this time. The way that he’s holding himself, like if he makes even the smallest mistake in this the whole thing will disappear.

“You’ll be fine, kid,” Cayde says. His hand is about to clamp down on Tora’s shoulder but then he holds back and lets it fall down to his side, lets his fingers curl around the handle of his Ace. “We’ll figure this out.”

“You don’t know that,” Tora whispers. He looks down at the flooring as Sundance and his own Ghost brings them down. “What if she’s really gone? What if she’s—”

“She ain’t. Mee is a Hunter, my own personal protégé, kid. She’s not gone. She’s _not_.”

“You don’t _know that_!” Tora repeats and finally looks up at Cayde. Terror is shining in his eyes, pure and simple. “No one knows _anything_ and if she’s gone I don’t know what I’ll do because—”

“Alright, _timeout_!” Cayde cuts in and finally, _finally_, lets his hands release any weapon they just might happen to have a grip on and instead fall down on Tora’s shoulders. He ignores how the Warlock’s entire body jumps at the contact. “Meera ain’t no pushover. You know that. I know that. Fuck’s sake, boy, she dragged you through the lair to the House of Devils and you came out with a few bruises and a sprained pinky bone! She’s dragged you through Crota and Skolas and fucking _Oryx_! If she was in over her head, trust me here, we’d know.

“Now, what we’re going to do down there is real simple, yeah? We go out there, we find Meera, we bring her back to this here ship and then we _haul ass_ back to Earth. After that, oh, I dunno, maybe we’ll figure out a way to get back the Last City from whichever space turtle decided to throw a tantrum and then we’ll take it from there. But, first things first, _you_ need to stop panicking and seein’ ghosts everywhere you turn to look.”

“But she had the Light back then, Cayde!” Tora is looking down at the floor again now, clenching his hands into fists. “She had the Light, _and us_, to help her out! She’s alone now, she has to be, and what if—”

“I really, _really _hate to be the one responsible for breaking up this heartfelt man-to-man spiel you’ve got going here, Solaris,” Sundance cuts in as she appears between the two of them in a flash of Light. “But your carriage has touched down, princesses.”

If Cayde wasn’t busy trying not to piss himself from laughter he’d be chucking something at his Ghost.

But then again, he’s missed her sass.

* * *

The first thing that comes to mind when Cayde looks out over the expanse of forest in front of him is _damn_.

Aphrodite Terra is a hilly landscape with forest as far as the eye can see, occasionally broken up by a riverbed or two, maybe a very tall hill, and lush like the rainforests on Earth.

Of course, there is also the towering skeletons also sprinkled across the landscape, but Cayde would very much rather ignore those right now.

He can hear them whispering.

Way, way back there, on the furthest reaches of his mind, he can hear _something_ whisper sweet nothings to him.

_[You want her back? I can help you, Hunter]_

_[All you need do is Wish it]_

_[My mind and body are both yours, if you would gift me with a Wish]_

_[Think of what we could do, together! Think of the Power just waiting to be unleased from your fingertips with _me_ by your side]_

It’s fucking annoying is what it is.

“I don’t like the voice that keeps breaking into your head, Cayde,” Sundance complains as he and Solaris step out onto Venusian ground. The entire area is practically _vibrating_ with energy. “They’re very rude.”

“I completely agree, ‘Dance,” Cayde nods his agreement and reaches up to run the back of his hand against her chassis. “Now, be a darling and do a scan, yeah?”

Sundance, because she is simply the bestest Ghost there ever was, does a loop in the air and goes about her business, scanning away and boosting her capabilities off of Solaris’ own little buddy.

To think, they’re doing all of this for one fucking Guardian.

Because of course Meera had to go and get lost on the one fucking planet where Ahamkara were slaughtered like cattle by a butcher.

“Hold on, Mee,” he whispers and reaches for his Ace of Spades. “We’re coming.”

“I’m getting a signal respond directly northeast of here, Cayde!”

They head northeast.

* * *

Tora does not seem to hear anything at all.

At least, that is Cayde’s reigning theory.

He’s still tense. Still shaking ever so slightly with every single step he takes towards the northeast.

Still scowling.

* * *

The further they go, the colder it feels.

“I thought the volcanoes kept Venus nice and toasty,” Tora says as he frowns. He is kneeling on the ground, holding a frost-covered leaf between two fingers. “You know anything ‘bout this, Vanguard?”

Cayde sits on his haunches and takes the leaf from Tora. As he twists and turns it there is a moment where it almost feels… familiar. The way that the ice is shining reminds him of another time where Sundance falls to the ground, where Meera is begging for help in the snow where Fallen scream_andithurtsithurtsohCaydepleasehelpithurt—_

“_Cayde_!”

Sundance’s voice snaps him out of it and Cayde yanks his hand backwards. The leaf falls to the ground.

“Cayde?”

Tora’s hand lands on his shoulder and, for but a moment, Cayde shudders from the warmth that the Warlock gives off.

“It’s—no,” he shakes his head. “I don’t—never seen this before.”

“What was that there?” Tora presses on. The inquisitive little _bastard_.

Cayde shuts his eyes and manages to just about shake his head without invoking the overwhelming sense of nausea that is threatening to make him puke up everything he’s digested over these last forty-eight hours.

“No, it’s—it’s nothing. Just, ah, got a bad feeling off of that leaf there.”

“The leaf… gave you a bad feeling.”

“There is no Light here,” Sundance whispers. She flies close to Cayde and snuggles into the folds of his scarf. “That ice… don’t touch it, guys.”

As he stands up Tora wipes his hands off on his knees and grimaces.

Cayde does the same.

The temperature is dropping. Rapidly, at that.

“Right, well, that ain’t creepy at all, now is it?” he mumbles and hauls Cayde onto his own two feet. “You good to travel further?”

“Yeah, sure,” Cayde nods before glancing at their backpacks. “But, uh, now might be a good time to bling ourselves out like a pair of teen girls gettin’ ready to hit the disco.”

“You know, I actually manage to build up a small bit of respect for you and then you go and do shit like that…” Tora mutters but nonetheless he gets out his backpack and starts transferring the silver-layered gear onto his person with help from his Ghost.

Cayde does the same. But quiet. He’s… well, afraid might be a good word to describe it, as much as he detests that particular word at the same time.

He’s apprehensive. Yeah, that’s a good word, good for explaining how he’s feeling about all of this.

“Sundance, help me out here, would ya?”

* * *

Apprehension turns into straight up worry the moment they come across the first Fallen.

It’s a Captain. Covered in frost as well, and frozen in the pose of something legging it as fast as possible from whatever is behind it.

When they look through the foliage, they see light, a clearing.

When their Ghosts dare hover over the dense tree line, they see an Ahamkara.

“We’re closing in,” Cayde says, grimly, and both Guardians readies their weapons.

* * *

“What the fuck.”

If ever there existed a situation where those three words were accurate representation, they this would be it.

Of that, Cayde is dead certain.

There are crystals—ice—hovering in the air. In front and above them towers the skeleton of an Ahamkara and around them—

_Danger_, Sundance whispers in his mind._ There is no Light here, we will have no aid_

“_Meera_!”

Tora’s scream tears Cayde out of the daze he’s been in since stepping into the clearing. Since those large, hollowed eyes grabbed a hold of his very being, his soul, and _kept him tethered_. But he blinks his optics, clears the input, and if an Exo could pale then Cayde would be doing it.

Meera.

She’s there.

She’s _alive_.

But she’s not responding.

“Meera, you’re alive!”

Tora is running straight ahead before Cayde can stop him, before he can warn the idiot about the sense of _danger_ that lingers around here. And Cayde wants to do just like Tora, wants to run straight ahead and throw his arms around his girl, kiss her silly, drag her home and never let go every again but there is danger somewhere around here and he can’t _figure out where it’s coming from_.

Cayde looks at her.

Really, _truly_, looks at her.

She’s pale.

He sees her skin and thinks of frost freshly coating the tiniest branches in Siberia. He sees her matted, unbound hair and thinks of lazy days spent curled up together between sheets that smell of her and him and sweat and oil and sex. He sees her armor and internally weeps for every scrape and bruise that he can see through the tatters. He sees Tora run to her and barely manages to get words out of his voice box.

He sees Tora fly back through the air, screaming as the frost bites into his flesh.

She looks... sick. 

Dark hollows beneath her eyes, pale skin that looks as if it is stretched to the limit on top of her bones. Her hair is dirty and matted, held back in a loose ponytail that is barely holding on, and around her neck hangs a sling. From where he is sitting, Cayde can’t really make out much, even with his Exo-enhanced vision, but he’s willing to bet a pretty large pile of glimmer on her Ghost being in there somewhere. 

“You made it.”

Her voice echoes. He feels it in every cell of his body, every molecule and atom trembles when she lets out those three words.

The ground crystallizes, the temperature drops even further, and now even Cayde has to acknowledge the shivers that his clever, clever Clovis Bray brain is telling the rest of his body are bad.

[_are the crimson flowers not beautiful cayde do they not remind you of a garden long gone_]

And now Cayde realizes that those chunks of ice that litters this here clearing are just strangely enough formed to actually, _maybe_, be shapes of something that once lived.

He sees the vague shape of a dreg trapped forever in ice, its’ face twisted in a terrified snarl. A bit further away three vandals have been halfway encased with one’s head free of ice and slumped over in death.

“Meera?” he whispers but apparently a whisper is enough because her face snaps from looking at Tora to looking at him instead.

Cayde wants desperately for recognition to fill those wonderful green eyes of hers. But there is none to be found.

“You need not fear.”

Meera—or whatever has taken hold of her—steps closer. Cayde never breaks eye contact as he kneels down and helps Tora up onto his own two feet again.

“We have heard your cries for help,” she continues. Her voice still echoes, still twists and turns, wraps around him like a beautiful promise[_a lie_] and Cayde truly, _really_, wants to believe it. “And soon we will answer.”

“Who are you?” Cayde asks. He swallows and shivers when the frost coats the ground beneath him, when it licks at his boots. “_What_ are you?”

“Don’t either of you recognize me? Cayde-6? Tora Solaris?” Not-Meera frows. Cayde can see it clear as day from where he is standing, now with Tora by his side.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, yeah?” Cayde tries with humor. It’s worked before, it’ll work again.

Probably.

Maybe.

Meera grins. It is a wide, twisted grin that promises death. _Darkness_.

“I wonder what role I can play in this game. Perhaps… an ally? Yes, I believe that I shall be your ally here. The troubled Guardian who lost her way, and now she has returned to bestow long-forgotten power onto those deserving!”

“What the fuck?” Cayde mumbles. His trigger finger is itching. His mind is screaming. There is too much information all at once and his throat is _clogged_.

“The Vanguard who has everything! His brother, time and time again; the woman he loves almost as often as his brother. And, of course, the lost Guardian who yearns for his family to be made whole once more! Who yearns for his brother as well, his Striker, his Awoken Titan, torn to shreds by Humanity’s genius!”

“Shut the Hell up!” Tora snarls. “You know _nothing_!”

“Careful there, Solaris,” Meera’s face splits in a twisted grin as her voice, for just a second, changes from her own, albeit echoing and pulsating, to a much deeper, masculine one instead. “Wouldn’t want you to sprain your brain, now would we?”

Zalli Shornell. That was Shornell’s voice just now.

“You motherfuck—"

“I could have given her everything. Anything at all, all she needed to do was Wish it. But she was so very simple. No sense of power. Of glory. All she wanted was love.”

Tora tenses beside him and shuts up as fast as the Ahamkara interrupted him. He is readying for another run at her. Cayde knows that it’s wrong. That everything around them is wrong.

“What did you do to her?”

“I brought you here. I gave her the love that she craved. Such a sad, lonely child she was when she came here. Alone, with no Ghost, no friends, no Vanguard to guide her. Such loss that lingered in her heart. All of it…” Meera stops her slow walk towards them, looks behind her and sighs as she gazes upon the towering remains of the Wish Dragon behind her, caresses the bone that coats her. “So very delicious to feast upon.”

A glimpse. He sees it for a second.

_[Come now, don’t be shy… step into the Light, won’t you, my love?]_

“She is not yours to toy with.”

At this, Not-Meera nods. One hand lifts up to caress her own cheek, the nails biting into soft, subtle flesh.

“‘Tis true, another of my kind has a firm hold of her body and soul. Such promise that awaits. A promise that has survived countless loops, such heartbreak, such tragedy and loss again and again, as if the Fates never tire of seeing this dance play out. Truly, you little creatures know how to entertain those who have been forced to remain behind.”

Cayde stiffens. The ice is creeping up over the edges of his boots now, are crusting Tora’s robes near the ground.

“She. Is. Not. _YOURS_!”

Not-Meera _laughs_.

“Come now, listen to reason. You are throwing yourself at an impenetrable wall. I suppose this is your way of asking for a divorce?” she asks. Her laughter is like silver bells and ice picks jabbing at flesh. Cayde feels her laughter ring inside his head, feels claws make ribbons of his synthetic flesh. “I refuse, you are stuck with me. Every Wish has its’ price.”

“And did she?” Tora asks, his voice is trembling. “Did she Wish something off of you?”

Now she scowls.

“You are not privy to the details of our conversations. What we have is none of your business.”

“Don’t try and talk your way out of this, you overgrown lizard! Way I see it, you’re squatting on someone else’s property. If I were you, I’d scram,” Cayde says and his hand draws Ace. Without another word he levels it at Meera, ignores the outrage that Tora is throwing at him from the side, and aims for her head. “Ahamkara never were good at sharing, now were they?”

One eye closes.

He sees it clearly, sees how her head will explode in a burst of red, gray and dark hair. Sees how she will fall to the ground. Sees how Tora screams and rages as his last friend goes to her death with a crazed grin on her face and madness in her eyes.

He sees it so clearly.

All he needs to do is _Wish it_.

_[Paradise is a prison when you cannot leave, O lover mine… do you not remember such grandeur that the two of us experienced when you were _mine_?]_

_[Shall we be close once more?]_

He remembers Her touch. Remembers when that _monster_ wrapped him in deceit and the blanket of love that was poison in reality.

_[Strike this one down, prove your devotion!]_

_[You Wish for answers, don’t you? The mighty hero, fettered by smallminded ambitions. I think you have outgrown your purpose. I think you are destined for greater things. And I think that I am destined to guide you there.] _

“Her and I have filled the world with _teeth_! They glisten and glitter, like the sweetest poison upon the most beautiful blade! And you should know, an Ahamkara never relinquishes its prey.”

He is so close.

_[Reality, after all, is the finest flesh, O Guardian mine. And are you not… hungry? Save your beloved from the dragon. Kill this one. Kill this wretched fool who dares encroach upon what is mine.]_

His finger _itches_.

Beckons, promises, whispers.

She is close enough now that Cayde can clearly see the tracks of tears that are running down Meera’s cheeks. Somewhere inside of him there is a small hope that she is fighting this, that she wants to go to him safe and sound as much as he wants to do the same with her. For he can set her free from all of this, can’t he? He alone is all that is needed to free this poor fool who has been trapped in the spider’s web, all he needs to do for another chance is to press the trigger, give in to temptation, and bring forth a new try!

_[**BE MINE**]_

“YES!” Not-Meera screeches and her hands reach out towards the two of them. Both Cayde and Tora steps back. “Just like that—_yes_! Go on, Wish it, grant me the Power I have longed for! Release me from the bonds that you Guardians trapped me in centuries ago!”

She laughs once more, still crazed, and finally Cayde _sees it_—sees what he has to do, how he will set everything free!

His finger that presses against the trigger tightens, he ignores Tora screaming into his ear, and finally fires!

“NO! CAYDE, WHAT ARE YOU DOIN—"

The bullet soars through the air, cuts through thick Ahamkara magic—heavy and potent—shatters the film of ice and frost that covers Meera from top to toe, and she—

—the teeth embedded in Meera’s shoulder are ripped from her flesh.

* * *

The chunks of ice, the floating crystals—all of it shatters.

With a scream so loud that both Cayde and Tora hunch over, presses hands to both ears and audio modules, as Meera falls to the ground.

It pierces through everything, threatens to disintegrate eardrums and shatter worlds.

_[NO! You cannot—I will not allow you! I will take what was promised, they said they promised they gifted I was granted _EVERYTHING_!]_

“Meera!”

Cayde hears her sobs, at first still echoing and so very hollow, but the longer she screams the more normal it sounds, and when he dares to look at her, he sees her on the ground, on her knees, hair falling like a curtain around her face as she heaves for breath.

Crystals of ice linger in her hair, clings to where her body meets the ground, but Cayde staggers towards her on shivering legs—a fawn, his mind unhelpfully tells him, you’re like a newborn fawn daring to take its’ first steps into a brave new world—and one hand stretched out towards her.

“It’s okay, Meera, it’s okay,” he forces out through uncooperative body parts. He reaches her and lands rather uncoordinatedly on his knees—something inside his faulty leg clicks and he winces at the jab of pain that races from the knee up the thigh and finally from the base of his spine to where it meets the back of his neck. Meera still heaves for breath as she presses herself against the ground, and barely bites back a sob when Cayde lets a hand touch the shredded material on her back. “It’ll be okay.” 

“I—I—C-Cayde?” 

Her voice is like sandpaper.

“Shhh,” 

“I t-thought you were... w-what did I—?” 

Cayde hasn’t even heard him, so focused has he been on just _her_. But Tora falls on his knees and _breathes_. For the first time in several days, Cayde sees him breathe like he’s done before the Light was ripped from his very being.

“Easy now, Mee,” Tora says and the noise that leaves Meera at the sight of her friend, alive and well, is something that will haunt Cayde for the rest of his days. “We’ve got you, yeah?” 

“But you were—” 

“We’re not gone,” he interrupts her before she can get going. “We’re here. We’re _alive_, you hear? The whispers lied, Meera, they weren’t real.”

At this point Cayde can barely hold himself back anymore. She is here, he can feel her beneath his hand, and he slowly moves to haul her closer. Somehow, and how he manages it without bursting into tears himself he will _never _know, he gathers her into his arms. Cayde hasn’t seen her face yet, almost cannot bring himself to actually do it, but he feels the tears that meet his plating as if they are searing hot, and lets out a shuddering breath.

“They… t-they _felt_ real.” 

“I know, sweetheart,” Cayde uses his thumb to clumsily wipe away tears that he cannot truly see. Wipes away the tears that are beginning to run down her cheeks and he smooths back her hair. “I know. But they _lied_. You have to listen to me, alright? They _lied_, every single one of them.” 

“But Riven—” 

“There ain’t no one here who has the power to take you away from us, you hear? But you gotta stay with us until we’re off this damn planet, alright?” Cayde is beginning to feel the smallest trails of fear beginning to latch onto his mind now. The longer that they’re here, and specifically here in this field, the larger the chances are that they’ll bring something back with them that should never, ever leave Venus’ surface. “Meera, can you do that for me, sweetheart?” 

“Y-yeah,” she is shivering heavily, but she manages a nod. “Yeah, I can—I can do that.” 

“Good girl,” he smiles and presses a quick kiss to her forehead. “Now, c’mon, we’re leavin’.” 

He’s got her.

He’s got his girl.

And he is never letting her go again.

* * *

[You are such fickle creatures, you know that? That is why I like you. Here’s a thought! Instead of fighting, let yourselves be _Taken_. Show me your resolve, O Guardians mine. Show me your claws and teeth, your resolve to _LIVE_, your _WILLPOWER_… show me _EVERYTHING_!] 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, as always, are appreciated :)


	19. Meera IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> andal brask is a charming bastard and he isn't even trying what the actual fuck is this?

It is a wonderful illusion that Riven shows her.

Or, illusion_s_, rather.

If only she could actually believe that what she is seeing is actually _real_.

* * *

She is Vanguard.

Standing proud beside Zavala and Ikora, Meera leads the Hunters from the Tower and cares for them as well as she possibly can. She wonders how Cayde ever managed to stay on that hair-thin balance between procrastinating on the insane amount of paperwork that superior officers apparently have to do, and struggles to stay right where she is instead of jumping over the railing to join her Hunters out there in the wilds.

How Cayde ever managed to keep himself in check is a testament to his willpower, she’ll give him that.

And, of course, she still manages to meet Cayde. Andal too.

The two of them stagger into the Hall of Guardians one day, rowdy and dirty like a pair of roughhousing children, grinning like loons and waving torn sigils from the House of Devils like the racing flags seen by the finish line.

It takes everything in her to not run straight to Cayde and kiss him silly, because in this version of reality, apparently, she is here _before_ him, and therefore that would be extraordinarily weird. So, _so_ weird. But her heart rate still spikes enough for her Ghost to look at her curiously, and when he privately asks her if something is wrong she simply shakes her head and tells him to forget about it, that the teal Exo Hunter coming in simply reminded her of someone from long, long ago, and refuses to answer any further questions even though she is pestered for the rest of that particular day and the following week.

Meera still loves him, loves Cayde. She comes to learn how to love both of them.

How can she not, after all? After everything that Cayde has told her over the different loops, from what little she has managed to dig up on her own, Andal is the man with an actually functioning plan, complete with shitty humor and patchy beard.

“Howdy, Vanguard!” the man greets one day, sauntering up to her like he owns the place, and winks when she greets him with a nod. “Got any special tasks you need clearing?”

“Well, you could do with winning a few more bets in the Sparrow Racing Leagues, Brask. We’ve been lagging behind both the ‘Locks and Titans lately.”

“Careful there, Quill,” Ikora says without looking up from her handheld at the other end of the table. “If the Commander catches you actively encouraging illegal betting, he’ll be handing over punishment faster than you can shoot a gun.”

“Ouch,” Andal grimaces and leans against the Vanguard’s table, crossing his arms. “Anything that ain’t, y’know, vehicle related?”

Meera shrugs.

“Well, there’s always clearing Fallen caches out in the Cosmodrome. Or, if you’re feeling real lucky, that stake-out in the Manhattan Nuclear Zone. Who knows what’s still lying around out there, right?” Meera says and chuckles when Andal makes another grimace. “Not really your style, I take it.”

“I was thinking something a bit more… clandestine?”

At this Meera lets her eyebrows inch closer to her hairline. “What, semi-illegal betting ain’t clandestine enough for ya? You fishing for some good ol’ Western-type of mission?”

Brask has the audacity to actually look _hopeful_. “Uh, yeah?”

And the teeth in her shoulder _bites deeper_.

* * *

Meera finds that she likes Andal a lot.

* * *

When she drunkenly stumbles into the Vanguard apartments with both Cayde and Andal right behind her, Meera barely thinks about her actions before she is busy trying to pull off the clothes of both of her companions.

Cayde chuckles over her impatience and tries to slow her down, but Meera burns him with the stinging of Darkness and Void and he lets her take the lead, content to see where the evening is going and enjoying every second of whatever this fucked up reality is becoming.

This is wrong.

She runs her hands over cool metal and warm flesh, sighs in pleasure when their bodies join, and wordlessly leaves in the morning—she is too scared to look the two of them in the eye.

And the teeth dig deeper.

* * *

_It is all so wrong!_

* * *

She is not Vanguard.

She stands by Cayde’s side, both of them Hunters and free—and if she has teeth in her shoulder that keeps digging further and further in then no one is mentioning it, because if she ignores it long enough, perhaps they’ll just go away?

Running with a pack, a proper pack and not just a normal fireteam, is so very different from what she is used to with watch rotations, order, a sense of apprehension.

A pack is family is life and Meera fits in like a fish in water.

And she has her Cayde.

She has her Exo, her Knight in shining armor.

Andal, too.

* * *

“Reckon life’ll ever change, Quill?”

Meera looks up from the block of wood she is whittling away at, the rough outline of a bird with outstretched wings yet to fully take shape. Andal is sitting on a fallen log not too far away with a liquor flask in one hand and his sniper across his lap. At the bottom of the hill sits Cayde and Shiro-4, shrieking up a storm over something happening in their cardgame.

“What do you mean?”

“This,” Andal gestures to the air around him. “Everything, I mean. This all seems so… peaceful, y’know. Makes me all antsy. Like something’s ‘bout to happen.”

“I won’t let anyone get hurt, Brask. You _know _that,” Meera says forcefully and puts down both wood and knife before she cuts herself on something. The bird can wait. “I won’t let anyone get to them.”

“Good,” Andal nods and finally smiles. It’s a somber, dark and dead thing that has no business being anywhere near Andal’s usually so jovial and carefree face. Let it fuck off to the deepest darkest pits of Hell. “I’m holding you to that.”

“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“Good girl,” he smirks at her and gives her a little wink. His eyes are twinkling with mirth. “Now, wanna go hurl mud at those suckers from behind the bushes over there? Cayde’s Ghost has been begging me to dirty him up for a while now. Apparently, he’s been slacking in chassis-cleanin’.”

“Oh, the absolute horror,” Meera laughs and it does not take long for Andal to join in. “I’m in!”

He takes her hand in his and drags her along.

And Meera is _happy_.

* * *

Meera screams.

The ice is burning her from the inside.

It hurts—_it_ _fucking hurts_—and nothing that Cayde does is enough to quell the anger that blooms inside her.

* * *

How could he? He’s dead.

Cayde is gone.

There is no Light left in his body, in his Ghost who lies shattered on the floor of a derelict Prison built by those who cares little for what Guardians deal with.

* * *

The Light did nothing.

* * *

Cayde died because of the Light.

* * *

The Traveler is a lie. It never cared. It’s dead. It’s fucking _dead_, and only when Ghaul is gone will it truly begin to heal. She knows this—Meera _knows_ this—but what the Speaker and the Stranger and her Ghost tells her is nothing but a lie.

Because where were the Traveler and the Light when she was there in the Prison of Elders, alone and terrified as she held Cayde’s wrecked body—

—she gasps, takes in one cold breath after the other as a siren rings overhead.

“_He didn’t feel a thing._”

She looks up and sees Uldren loom above her, waving the Ace of Spades—it’s still smoking—and in her arms is Cayde with unseeing, dark optics and his lifeblood leaking out between her fingers.

No.

No, this isn’t real.

Please.

Please, no.

No, she can’t do this anymore she can’t see this shit again can’t handle this again please oh someone please help please helppleaSEHELPPLEASEHEL_PSOMEONEHELPHER**PLEASE**_—

* * *

Meera breathes and she is standing in the clearing.

The Ahamkara skeleton looms in front of her, dangerous and waiting for her response.

_[Will you give me your word?]_

She hesitates.

Her word is eternal. Forever. As long as she still draws breath.

Forever cannot be taken back.

“Can you stop it?” she asks. “Can you stop Her from taking him away from me?”

_[There is little that is not within my power. A shame that you only find me now, diminished. Had I still a physical body I could do so much more. Bring you satisfaction beyond your imagination.]_

Meera places a glove-free hand on the snout of the skull and shudders when she feels the energy that still remains decades, if not centuries, after the Great Hunt has ended.

If it ever really did in the first place, that is.

“If I do this… will I become Dark?”

_[Your Light is already diminished, little one. I will simply… restore your greatness.]_

“Through Darkness?”

She shouldn’t.

The Darkness is wrong, the exact opposite of what she has stood for since becoming a Guardian.

_[You would not be the first. There have been others before you. You are not alone, should you tread this path.]_

“You’re going to force this on me, then? Is that what will happen?”

_[There is always a choice. The time for yours has come.]_

And Meera freezes.

_“I hope that you find whatever it is that you seek out here. _ _And know this, there is always a choice.” _

The Stranger.

“Is this…” Meera swallows. Her knees buckle and she has to lean against the snout of the skeleton in order to stay upright. The echo of laughter that echoes in her head grates on her nerves. “Is this what she meant? The Stranger?”

_[I cannot say. I have not met this ‘Stranger’ you speak of.]_

“They’ll hate me if I do this. I’ll be cast out.”

_[Is there not someone who will greet you back with open arms? Someone who you can wholly depend on?]_

“If he’s still alive.”

_[Your Cayde.]_

“Yes.”

_[Why not take the chance? Why not reconnect with a Power far greater than what you have had access to before? Let loose your voice and roar until the skies fall down. Do this and you will never be alone again.]_

“It’s right, sweetcheeks,” Cayde whispers. A ghost of a kiss is pressed to her cheek and Meera automatically leans into it, sighing. Cayde cackles when she does. “Would more power really be so bad?”

“You won’t—”

“Won’t what?” he interrupts without so much as a by-your-leave. “Won’t love you? That’s bullshit and you know it. I’ll never stop, sweetheart. I never _did_.”

“You’re not _him_. You don’t know that.”

“True,” Cayde sighs and he looks her straight in the eye. His arms are still around her from behind. “I ain’t the real one. You know it. I know it. Tellin’ ourselves different would be lyin’ to ourselves. But you’re just too… _good_, girl. You’re too good to miss out on.”

“That’s the Ahamkara talking. Not you. Not my Cayde.”

Not-Cayde laughs. He changes before her eyes—Zalli smiles at her and Meera can barely keep back the sob because seeing him smile at her like that once more feels like benediction.

“You could take the deal, Mee,” he says and cradles her face in his hands. They’re rough and scarred from battle. Warm, just like Zalli’s used to be. “You could betray me and take that decrepit skeleton’s deal. Or, you could stay with me and I will grant something even greater than power.”

“…what?”

Zalli’s lips twist in a wide grin as the teeth in her back press deeper into her skin, sends rivers of blood down her back.

“I am Riven of a Thousand Voices, O lover mine, and I can grant you _knowledge_.”

* * *

The planets and moons are gone.

The people flee.

The heroes of ancient times are brought back.

Mercury. Mars. Io. Titan.

A new moon to explore—ancient Golden Age facilities.

The birthplace of [REDACTED].

_[Not yet, little one, not this never this you will have to **earn** before I feed you]_

_Darkness_.

* * *

** _The Light cannot save you. Seek us out on Europa_ **

* * *

Her hand is frosted over.

Knowledge is power. A taste of what is to come. A taste of what she can unleash if she ever gains control of what is festering inside her.

That Ahamkara. Riven.

She has given Meera the spark that was needed.

* * *

When she comes to once more she can still hear the screams.

All those Fallen… she hadn’t meant to. She didn’t want to.

Meera looks up. Sees the desolation around her.

Ice, some in chunks and some lying in a faint layer around her, is everywhere.

Some are hovering in the air. Still. In stasis. Traps for whatever was unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius of whatever is sitting there inside of her now, gnawing and hungry, desperate for _more_.

Meera shudders. “Is this the power that you could have granted me?”

_[There is still something that you could take. A way for unlocking more of your potential.]_

“Riven already promised me this.”

_[Riven of a Thousand Voices lies, little one. She is raised on deceit, raised by starlight and shadow, of Awoken Queens and searching Techeuns. She will never speak the truth.]_

The ice hovers closer to her. Her hand is completely covered now. It is spreading up her arm.

Meera lets it.

It is power. It is something that will help her. It is what she needs to bring down Ghaul when the Light is out of reach.

A whine rings in the air—a familiar noise.

A _starship_.

_[Someone has come. They are seeking you.]_

“Who?”

_[Danger. Outsiders. Light-bearers. Let me in and I will keep you safe.]_

Pressure grows in her head, makes the ice spread faster. Meera scowls and digs her nails into the soft flesh of her palms, refuses to budge.

“No. I did not agree.”

_[You dare challenge me?]_

The presence in front of her looms. Grows greater than she, than anything she has ever faced, and Meera falls to her knees as the blood runs from her back from her palms from her eyes from her nose from her ears.

_[You little fool! I will have my due!]_

* * *

Meera is vaguely aware of Cayde and Tora finally standing not too far away. The ecstasy that someone _heard her_, that someone found her distress call, is almost enough for her to let out a laugh of relief.

There is no Andal to give her a one-armed hug and tell her that it’ll be alright, that it doesn’t matter if she missed with an entire clip of sniper rounds because they have more and he’ll take her somewhere quiet to practice until she’s better, promise and cross his heart.

How strange that she misses the illusion of a man she has never known.

“Chin up, Meesy,” Andal snickers and nimbly dodges the swing she directs his way. “What, you don’t like the nickname?”

“You’re _terrible_, Brask. Fuck off.”

“Get that damn Ahamkara outta your head and I’ll stop. Get those teeth outta your back and I’ll never pester you again. Hunters got pride, yeah? Step up and show that damn space reptile who’s boss ‘round here.”

“I can’t. Cayde’s just there and I can’t get to him. He can’t hear me.”

“Well, he can definitely hear that thing that’s using your mouth to speak from what I can tell,” Andal scratches at his chin, nails snagging on a nick he got when he last shaved and drawing out a small hiss of annoyance when the blood begins to well up. “Can’t you just yell louder?”

“I don’t know,” Meera whispers. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You could always try, y’know? You won’t know until you do, Meesy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Well, don't be such a fucking pushover then.”

Andal’s voice is hard now. He’s Andal the Vanguard, not Andal the Packmember.

A shot rings in the clearing and Meera _screams_.

The teeth are pulled from her flesh. Rending, tearing, smearing everything everywhere and it takes everything in her to not just let go and let the Darkness freeze everything up until Venus is nothing but ice and cold and _dust_.

Brask’s presence is fainter.

He’s fading. Fast. But no, he can’t!

Not yet.

Please!

“Wai—_stop_! Andal, wait!”

_Please_, Andal!

“Can’t stick ‘round much longer, Quill,” Andal stretches his arms as far as he can above his head and smiles. It’s carefree and so much like Cayde that Meera feels the tears well up in her eyes. “Got shit to do here in the afterlife, y’know. But, ah, keep an eye on ‘im for me, alright? I’ll owe ya one.”

A warm hand on her cheek, a fingertip that _boops_ her nose, and then he’s gone.

And Meera is blessedly alone in her head.


	20. Cayde X

Meera loses consciousness somewhere between the clearing and Tora’s starship.

For Cayde this is completely fine, it gives him one less thing to worry about as he is plowing through the rocky and overgrown terrain, and he trusts that Solaris is going to keep a good eye on their sixes.

He fucking better.

“Almost there, Vanguard!” Tora calls from behind as they top another hillside. It isn’t too far away from the ship now, but just the fact that he is here, on Venus, so close to so many Ahamkara—and deceased don’t fucking count, alright? As far as he’s concerned them skeletons ‘round here are still dangerous as all Hell—is enough for his skin to start crawling.

Keeping Meera close to his chest as he and Tora backtracks to the ship they took here, Cayde can’t stop touching her. His fingers keep running over her cheeks, forehead and nose, keeps dipping down beneath the tattered remains of her armor to feel the patches of visible skin.

The fact that she’s here—_alive_—is another shock to the system that he can deal with later when they’re _not_ in imminent danger from whatever lurks about in these here woods.

“You said that half an hour ago as well, Solaris!” Cayde barks out and tightens his grip on Meera’s unconscious body when he begins descending a rocky slope. Last thing he wants is to fall with her and maybe land on top of her. That would be a fucking disaster if there ever was one. Something inside his leg grinds against itself. For a moment it threatens to buckle.

They don’t have a lot of time.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know Venus like the back of my damn pocket, alright? _You’re_ the one who’s been here who knows many times!”

“That was back when I was still a free man, you asshole.”

“Less bitching, more running, yeah?” Sundance snaps as she scans the terrain around the three Guardians. “Something’s not right here. I want to get out of here, Cayde. As in, _now_.”

“Alright, alright, we’re _gettin’_ there! Jesus, ‘Dance.”

“Don’t you ‘Jesus, ‘Dance’ me, Cayde-6!” the Ghost shrills. There is the slightest brush of electricity that laps at one of his steam-vents and Cayde wordlessly snarls something back at her. “Prick.”

“Bitch!” he fires back snidely.

Tora just groans and probably prays to whatever might be listening that they’ll make it to the ship faster.

Cayde’s grip on Meera tightens.

He has her.

He has his girl.

And they’re going _home_.

* * *

A simultaneous sigh of relief comes from both Cayde and Tora the moment that the scrapbucket of a ship comes into view.

“Sundance, Hera, get those engines running!” Tora commandeers as he goes straight for the cockpit and starts throwing bits and bobs aside from under the steering controls. “Cayde, bring her over here!”

“The cot won’t be better?”

“The cot is currently covered in Shaw’s stupid silver gear that we shouldn’t even have bothered packing, as it did next to fucking _nothing_,” Tora snarls before letting out a triumphant noise when he pulls out a battered first aid kit. “Now bring ‘er over, alright?”

Cayde does as the burly Awoken says.

Somehow, it seems like it is the easiest option right now, not to admit defeat or anything.

Meera is brought to the front of the ship, still unconscious, and Tora motions for Cayde to sit down in the pilot’s seat with Meera on his lap. Again, Cayde does as he is asked, using the by-now familiar noises of the ship’s engines stirring and warming up as the anchor point he can hold onto in this whirling hellhole he’s found himself in.

“Her clothes are in the way,” Tora says with a grimace. “Or rather, what’s left of’em.”

“She is going to need a change of clothes, yeah,” Cayde nods. “Do we have anything packed?”

“Somewhere in the back, yeah,” the Warlock motions with a momentarily free hand to the back of the ship where several crates are still stacked haphazardly. “I’ve got some civilian clothing in there somewhere. I’ll check after I’ve looked her over.”

Tora apparently knows exactly what he’s doing as he immediately goes about unbuckling the many straps and buttons that secure Meera’s clothes to her person. The scraps of her cloak and her gloves are easy enough to remove, but it is when the two of them get to Meera’s chest piece that Tora starts looking like an exasperated father looking at his children’s mud-covered clothing.

“The fuck is she even wearing that damn Frumious suit for?” Tora grumbles as he leans over and grabs a knife out of Cayde’s utility belt without so much as a by-your-leave, ignoring Cayde’s noise of complaint. He cuts through the treated leather with deft movements, scowling up a storm meanwhile. “It’s practically just ceremonial armor with the minimum protections applied.”

Cayde knows why.

She loves that armor set. He gave it to her after the Black Garden.

Meera’s undersuit is in even worse condition, but this is where Cayde draws the line and he reaches for the first aid kit.

“I’ll take it from here,” he grunts and motions at the pilot’s seat. “You get us outta here, Solaris. I’ll, uh… I’ll take care of her from here on.”

They’re on their way through the atmosphere by now and the ship rumbles beneath their feet.

“You even know your way around a medkit, Vanguard?” Tora’s bright red eyebrows are high on his forehead as he looks at Cayde. He doesn’t exactly look like he has the highest regard for Cayde’s potential abilities with taking care of his teammate here.

It makes his hackles rise. Just, y’know, a teeny tiny bit.

“I know how a fucking medkit works, Solaris,” Cayde snarls in response and yanks the kit out of the Warlock’s hands before he hoists Meera up onto his shoulder and takes her to the back of the ship, muttering beneath his breath the entire time.

When he finally has some privacy behind a few of the stacked crates—and his cloak bundled up and placed beneath her head as a makeshift pillow—Cayde gets started on the work ahead of him. He knows that she’ll have puncture wounds on her back, not to mention other scrapes and bruises that may very well hide beneath her ratty undersuit. As he begins peeling it back, Cayde quickly realizes that this is going to need some knifework to get through and he carefully hooks fingers beneath the material before he cuts it open with another of his knives.

The sight that meets his eyes would have him weeping if he had tear ducts.

Meera’s body is bruised and battered from here to Hell and back again. What looks like the worst of it all, at least on the physical side, are the four puncture wounds on her back. He’s no expert on patching up folks, but he’s had to sew up more than one partner back when he was still an active Hunter out there in the field, and while it’s a rusty skill, he’ll have no trouble picking up where he left off.

Probably.

Maybe?

Fuck it, it’s worth a try.

Cleaning her off with disinfectant wipes is a time-consuming task, and at some point he is joined by Sundance who sheds light on his surroundings without a word. He mutters something unintelligible to her as thanks and she does a little somersault in return before increasing the amount of light that they have to work with. After that he digs out the civilian clothes that Tora said was stashed somewhere there in the back and emerges from a container with a green tunic and dark pants. Both articles of clothing are much too large for Meera’s slight frame, they’ll dwarf her completely, but it’s the only things they have that is not her ruined armor, and Cayde would rather not put her in that right now.

“D’you think she’ll make it?” Cayde whispers as he finishes pulling her arms through the holes in the tunic and lowers her carefully down again to rest against hi—_Andal’s_ cloak.

“She’s a fighter. She’ll have to be in order to still be here,” Sundance tries to assure him, bless her dainty little soul. “And you have the Light by your side now, Cayde. We’ll be able to bring back her Ghost.”

“I ain’t too sure ‘bout that, ‘Dance,” he shakes his head and lets a hand drift down to smooth back some errant strands of hair from Meera’s forehead. She’s starting to get a bit clammy to the touch, just enough that her hair is beginning to curl a little bit here, there and everywhere. “You don’t feel it?”

Because he does.

The Darkness. It’s clinging to Meera like a second layer of skin, hissing and angry, feeling like oily slime that won’t come off no matter how hard he’ll scrub his fingers.

“I do,” she agrees quietly and drifts closer to his shoulder, bumping it gently. “I do, Cayde.”

“What am I gonna do, ‘Dance?” he asks. There is a tone of desperation sneaking into his voice, he can hear it himself clear as day. “Zavala and Ikora won’t—”

“To Hell with the Vanguard, Cayde!” Tora’s voice cuts through the steady _thrum_ of the ship’s engines. Cayde startles, having not even heard the other man sneak up behind him, and he whirls around with tension sitting heavily in his shoulders.

Tora towers behind him.

“Excuse me?”

“I said,” the Awoken man narrows his glowing eyes. “To _Hell_ with the fucking Vanguard. They are not, and I repeat _not_, going to have a damn say in Meera. Not after all the bullshit you’ve dealt our Fireteam.”

“And what about me, then?” Cayde can’t help but throw out the challenge. Tora sure as shit ain’t taking Meera away from him, not now when he’s finally gotten her back. “You gonna keep her from me too, then?”

Tora snorts. “Are you fucking stupid? You really think that she’ll resign herself to being cared for by me? You’ve gotta have a couple loose couplings in there somewhere, Vanguard.”

“Yeah, probably. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Tora’s furious expressions mellows ever so slightly. But only _just_. “When she’s awake, _and talking_, we’ll handle it from there. Until then, you just keep up whatever it takes to keep her breathing, y’hear? She dies, I’m skinning you alive. We clear?”

“Like crystal,” Cayde nods and puts a soothing hand against Sundance when she bristles by his side. Let the man throw around his threats if he needs to, Cayde would be doing the same if their situations were reversed, probably. He’s not going to be faulting Tora for acting out right now.

“Tell me if she gets better or worse,” Tora says and turns around, probably heading back to the pilot’s seat. “I mean it, Cayde.”

“I will, I will! Now, go steer us safely home, captain,” Cayde shoos Tora in the direction of the pilot seat before he settles back against the metal hull of the ship, glancing down at Meera ever few moments.

He inhales. Holds it. Releases the breath.

He’s got her.

He’s got his girl.

And he’s taking her _home_.

* * *

He’s taking her home, but why does that nagging in the back of his head persist?

_Why_?!

* * *

Cayde looks at Meera, unconscious, and shudders.

The image of her standing in front of him, crazed grin on her face as she triumphantly raises her arms above her head, keeps popping up inside of his head, taunts him with the fact that he was _too late_.

He caresses her cheek and repositions her head from resting up against his—_Andal’s_ cloak to instead lie in his lap.

Her skin is still so soft, even after all this.

Cayde sighs.

What happened back there will be time that he can never get back with her, just because he took too long. Because he couldn’t put two and two together fast enough. All of it because he was busier flirting around, making excuses—doing _anything_ but actually look for the one person he has left of what once was.

If Tora doesn’t smack him, Cayde will do it himself.

* * *

Finally, she wakes.

They’re not too far away from Earth’s orbit, only a couple more hours should do it, and Cayde has almost dozed off when he hears the sharp intake of breath, followed by frantic flailing about in his lap.

Cayde’s eyes snap open and he finds himself looking straight into Meera’s eyes—confused and clouded from sleep, but they’re _hers_ and not at all tinted with madness.

“C-Cay—?” Meera starts to sit up, still flailing as she tries to orient herself, only to be interrupted by a fierce coughing fit. It sounds wet and rough, something that starts all the way down in the lungs and just needs to work itself out once more, and Cayde barely has time to move her before Meera rolls onto her side to hack and spit.

Something black comes up.

It splatters across the flooring and Cayde can’t do much more than hold back her greasy hair as Meera heaves and coughs whatever it is that has gotten stuck inside of her lungs.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity she falls back into his lap, heaving once more for breath. Cayde is right there beside her with his fans and processors humming up a storm as he tries to get the adrenaline in his system under control.

“M-Meera?” he asks. “You there, sweetheart?”

She spits again, scowling at the taste. “Y-yeah.”

By the Traveler’s crack, she sounds like someone threw glass into a rusty grinder. Cayde winces in sympathy before twisting to dig around in his backpack for a water cannister. After finding it he wordlessly unscrews the top and holds it to her lips. One of Meera’s hands comes up to cling at his wrist as she gulps down the water with greedy noises. When he spots a droplet hanging from her bottom lip, he barely even notices how he lifts a thumb to wipe it away, only registering the confusion on her face afterwards.

“What?”

Wow. Eloquence at its finest, Cayde.

“You’re here?” she asks—well, _whispers_ is probably the better word to use here. “You’re really here?”

“‘Course I am, Mee. I got your message,” Cayde nods. He smiles softly. “Of course I came.”

“I—I was… h-_horrible_ the l-last time… time that w-we—” she is cut off by a coughing fit that has Cayde scramble to raise her head higher than before with one arm while the other frantically searches for the cannister from before.

“Shhh, none of that now,” Cayde shakes his head as he holds the cannister up to her lips and lets her drink for a few good seconds. “One thing at a time, yeah?”

“B-but I—”

“_Later_, Meera,” he repeats firmly. Softly.

It’s like the world has shrunk down to just him and her, here in the back of a shitty starship as they’re frantically trying to get as much distance between themselves and Venus as physically possible.

He could do that. Yeah. Just… stay like this, with Meera in his arms, his Ghost by his side, forever. Forever sounds _so nice_.

She stares up at him. Her eyes look tired, bloodshot. The grip around his wrist slackens as her eyelids lower, and Cayde smiles down at her.

“Sleep, Mee,” he says softly and his free hand smooths away the errand strands of hair sticking to her forehead. “I’ll still be there when you wake up again.”

The grip on his wrist turns _bruising_.

“Promise me,” she rasps out. The look in her eyes speaks of desperation so utterly consuming that for a second there, Cayde nearly buckles under the instinct to look _away_. “Promise me, Cayde!”

“I—I promise,” he vows, not even thinking about his answer before it is out there, and watches as Meera lets out a rattling breath of relief, seemingly at peace.

She goes slack and her hand falls from his wrist as peaceful breaths are finally let loose.

* * *

“She’s been awake,” Cayde says. He stares down at the wrist Meera has been grasping at just moments before, stares at the traces of frost that lingers where her fingers have been pressing down. The lump in his throat is making him _sick_. “I just… y’know, wanted you to know that.”

Tora is, predictably enough, up in seconds and making a mad dash for the back storage, leaving Cayde to take over the steering controls. The praises he heaps upon the Traveler, upon the Light—

_BULLSHIT_!

The Light has done nothing—_nothing_—to help Meera back to him! To Hell with all of it, with the Traveler that hangs silent above a dying City as the Guardians look on, still waiting for their slumbering God to wake once more.

“Cayde, you alright?”

Sundance’s question startles him out of the haze.

His hand is covered in frost and it edges closer, further up his arm—_it whispers_.

“_Cayde_!”

A burst of hot, scorching _Solar_ bursts out of Sundance, fills the cockpit of the ship with warm, orange and golden light. The frost _screams_ as it is stripped away, the proximity to the Light—pseudo or not—strong enough to strip the Darkness away out here in the middle of space.

“Cayde, what the Hell is happe—_argh_!”

Tora’s demand changes to a scream when Sundance’s Light burns ever-brighter and sears his eyes.

And Cayde is left heaving for breath as the last speckles of frost is stripped from his frame.

Sundance’s Light dims eventually and they are left in the gloomy cockpit.

Tora is fucking _furious_.

“What is going on here? I leave for five seconds and you’re busy blasting away our location to every Light-sensitive equipment in the fucking System?!” Tora shouts, spittle flying from his mouth. The anger must be making some of his rumored control slip because his corona is flickering wildly across his skin, strongly enough for his Ghost to look more than slightly worried.

“How’s Meera?” Cayde bleats, only to flinch when the air is filled with Arc energy. The electricity that Tora favors is crawling up and down his arms, coalescing into dense orbs in his hands.

“Unconscious,” is the scathing reply that he receives from the Warlock. “And I’d like to see her stay that way until we’re back at the Farm!”

“Hey, I don’t kno—”

“It wasn’t Cayde.”

Not only Cayde, but Tora as well, looks at Sundance.

“_Explain_,” Tora seethes. If looks could kill, Cayde’s Ghost would be nothing more than dust being blown forth by the breeze. “Now.”

“He had been touched by Meera. By the Darkness that clings to her person. She must not even have been aware that she was shedding it when she woke earlier.”

Tora frowns. As does Cayde. Nothing about this makes any fucking sense.

“You mean that the ice we saw back on Venus is—”

“—is the Darkness manifested, yes,” Sundance confirms. She draws closer to Cayde. “Whatever happened with her back there on Venus, a deal was made. Whether it was with that Ahamkara or with the Darkness itself I don’t know, but _something_ happened. That much is clear as day.”

“Meera wouldn’t—”

“We don’t _know that_, Solaris!” Sundance snaps, and the sound of her raising her voice like this makes both men straighten their backs. “The truth of the matter _is_ that we have no idea about what happened to her down there on Venus, or even before that, for that matter! For all we know, the Darkness could have contacted her when the Traveler’s Light disappeared or when she sent out the distress beacon or when she came to Venus and found that blasted skeleton! We. Don’t. _Know_.”

“Sundance is right, Tora,” Hera agrees and rises in the air until she is right at eye height with her own Guardian. “Until she can tell us herself, we have no way of knowing what happened to Meera before we found her.”

“Well, we know _one_ thing. She met with an Ahamkara.”

“A _deceased_ one.”

“Just ‘cause they’re deceased don’t mean they ain’t dangerous, Solaris,” Cayde sighs and he runs a hand down his face. This… well, this just isn’t going how he imagined that it would. Then again, he’d never thought that he’d find Meera in the way that he did.

“I know that!”

“Then quit bitching over things we don’t know how to handle yet.”

Tora glowers but eventually the anger wheezes out of him. It’s like watching a deflating balloon as his face goes from an unbecoming purple to a softer lilac, and if the situation wasn’t as tense as it was, Cayde would be struggling to keep from wheezing and snickering with mirth over the posturing.

“Go back there and sit with her, I can’t—” Tora cuts himself off before staring resolutely out into space. He waves his hand in Cayde’s general direction without looking directly. “I need to focus on the ship, please.”

_Fine_, be that way. If he doesn’t want Cayde to be here, then he’ll scram, go back to where Meera lies, still and unresponsive.

It’s where he wants to be, anyway.

* * *

Meera wakes again as they’re landing on the outskirts of the Farm.

There is a moment where she just looks so utterly confused that it takes practically everything that Cayde has in him to _not_ croon at her over the adorable facial expressions that she is making.

Then she starts coughing up that black, disgusting liquid once more and the urge to croon is swiftly replaced with the urge to _panic_.

It dribbles down her chin and onto Tora’s tunic faster than Cayde can wipe the liquid away with frantic and yet still so careful movements. And it truly does scare him, because in all his years, Cayde has never seen something like this—he has never been in a situation like this where _he_ is the one taking care of someone else in this way before, and it _terrifies _him.

Meera simply waves her hand at Cayde, as if to placate him, while still coughing and spitting the vile stuff out of her. Whatever it is, it doesn’t look like it tastes particularly good.

“I’ll—” she wheezes and lets Cayde haul her onto her own two legs, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “I’ll be… fine, Cayde… just… just need a little r-rest, is… all…”

She still sounds like her throat has been set on fire.

Cayde winces.

“Right, and Zavala has turned bright pink in your absence, Mee.”

“R-Really?”

She tries for a smile, bless her heart, but her teeth are stained black from the liquid and it takes everything in Cayde to not wince at the sight. Instead, _diplomatically_, might he add here, he hands her the now mostly-empty cannister and motions for her to take a deep drink of it.

“Gurgle it and spit first,” he says as he makes his way down the entry ramp with her, ignoring the curious glances that are being thrown their way by the people milling about on the Farm. Behind him he can hear Tora’s muffled cursing as he is trying to get out of the ship without tripping over the numerous crates of silvered gear still in there. “Don’t swallow, alright?”

“You’re the boss,” Meera croaks before without a single complaint does as he says and spits out the first mouthful of water that she sips. The water is a murky gray and lingers on the grass where she spits it out.

Cayde does his very best not to notice.

Finally, _fucking finally_, Tora manages to make his way out of the ship and joins them out there on the outskirts of the Farm.

“So, welcome home, I guess?” he says and gestures to the place.

Meera looks more than a little whoozy as she takes in the Farm. Cayde knows that she’s been here before, he’s been here before with her, after all, but it still remains a sight to behold as he watches the peace come over her.

The sun is not too far away from setting for the day, and the last beams of light that it brings with it paints the entire place orange and gold and red. With the Shard of the Traveler sticking out, casting dark thunderclouds around itself, it all looks quite dramatic. Almost like it’s out of one of those trashy adventure and romance novels he’s been so fond of in the past.

Hens clucking can be heard—the chicken coop isn’t too far off from here—and over that there is the muffled noise of several people milling about, talking over each other and to each other. Every now and then the excited shrieks of either children or Guardians—who can even tell the difference at times?—pierces the air.

And on the wind, there is the scent of wet earth, of forest, of gunpowder.

It’s… yeah, Tora’s got it right.

It’s home.

“C’mon, now,” he gets a better hold of her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Let’s get you to a proper bed, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

“Shouldn’t we get a doctor involve—”

Cayde cuts off Tora with a sharp glare. “_Later_, Solaris. Fuck’s sake, we’re all three ‘bout to keel over from lack of proper rest and adrenaline. How about we just take the night off, and tomorrow we’ll be back to saving the world, eh?”

Meera’s chuckle would be utterly charming if it weren’t for the fact that she sounds like someone dying of a lung disease.

“Rest, Tora,” she wheezes. One of her hands come up to touch the Warlock’s cheek and he leans into it automatically. “It’s alright. I’ll be… I’ll be here.”

“You better,” he croaks and quick as a flash has his arm pressed against his eyes as he steps backwards, out of Meera’s reach. His eyes are suspiciously glittering here in the evening sun, but Cayde’s still got enough awareness to know when to press an issue and when to leave it well enough alone. Tora glances in his direction before heading off, presumably to find out if either Zavala or Ikora are back. “You take care of her now, Vanguard, you hear?”

“Cross my heart, Warlock. Now, _scram_!”

Tora’s responding smile is just a little bit savage, a little bit brittle, but he nods and bounds off, parting the crowds like an arrow.

Now it’s just the two of them. Standing here, in front of Tora’s ship, like _idiots_.

“So, uh…” Cayde fumbles for words as he glances down at Meera. “Wanna see my room?”

“What are you, five?” Sundance groans as she appears in a flash beside the two of them. “And besides, I thought you didn’t have a room here anymore.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Cayde sniffs and pokes at Sundance’s left fin, pushing her back through the air. “Now, come on, you two.”

* * *

Shaxx reacts to Cayde’s and Tora’s return with Meera like he does with everything.

_Enthusiastically_.

“Hunter Vanguard!” the Crucible handler bellows from across the grounds, having spotted the two of them and Sundance slowly making their way towards the residential huts. “As I live and breathe!”

“Shaxx is alive?” Meera mumbles, even if her words are almost completely unintelligible.

Cayde merely makes an affirming noise. He can hear, and feel, how she is getting more tired, how the energy is leaking out of her by the second.

“I take it your little errand was a success,” Shaxx’s voice never stops rumbling, but it is not as deafening as it was just before. He takes a good look at the two of them and nods. “You have fought well. Both of you.”

At this, Cayde frowns. “Wait, how do you even kno—”

“Do not question me, Hunter,” Shaxx tramples right through Cayde’s complaints without hesitation. “The battle you have gone through is clear for all to see in the way that you move, the way that you look around yourself. Rest well, knowing that here you are safe. _Both of you_.”

He hasn’t been aware of it, but Shaxx’s words loosens something inside of Cayde. Some small part of him that has been so damn tense ever since he set out to fix this whole fucking mess with Meera and Ahamkara and the Light missing and the Cabal and—

And—

He’s so damn _tired_.

“You’re right,” Cayde sighs. “Thanks, buddy.”

Cayde can’t see Shaxx’s face, but he is certain that the Titan is smiling.

“Is there anything you need? The two of you were stumbling around like lost birds.”

“Somewhere to rest, maybe? I think Hawthorne’s probably repurposed the shack I lived in here before it all… well, went down, I suppose.”

Shaxx’s arms cross for a moment as he nods. “You will stay in my abode. I have business to attend to for the remainder of the night, and there are always Guardians to train.”

At this point Cayde is really just feeling the deadbeat tiredness creep its disgusting claws into him, and the fact that there will be a soft cot somewhere to crash on sounds _heavenly_.

“Thanks again, Shaxx. Lead the way.”

And he does.

* * *

Shaxx’s housing isn’t much but it has a functioning light in the ceiling, flickering every few seconds but it’s there, a cot that looks rarely used and blankets that Cayde is seconds away from diving into.

“Rest well, both of you,” Shaxx repeats before departing, leaving Cayde and Meera alone.

And then it’s just the two of them.

Outside the sun has finally dipped below the treeline, painting everything in darker hues of purple and maroon. There are only faint traces of orange sunlight remaining on the sky, and it is the prettiest sight that Cayde has seen in… well, in what feels like forever.

“Welcome back, Meera,” he mutters and looks at his charge.

She’s dead on her feet, her hair is a mess, and Cayde has never seen a more beautiful woman.

“Mhmm,” she sighs and struggles to keep her eyes open. “‘S nice… bein’ back.”

Cayde maneuvers her across the small room and down onto the cot. Almost immediately she sinks backwards into the covers, barely conscious from all of the excitement today.

“It’s nice havin’ you back, too,” Cayde whispers. For a moment there he hesitates but then he bends down, hands clenched tight, and presses his lips to the corner of hers. “I missed ya.”

“You’re here,” she whispers back at him, eyes cracking open just enough to reveal hazy green eyes looking back up at him. “That’s all I need. You’re here…”

“Damn straight,” Cayde croaks out. There’s a lump in his throat again and his voice sounds thick, as if he’s holding back tears, but he keeps it at bay as best he can.

And he falls down beside her in the cot, clutching her as best he can with the injuries she still sports.

And he breathes.

He got her home.

He got his girl.

She’s finally _here_.

They’re safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Describe feeling for chapter, Guardian... yeeeeess? *insect noises*


	21. Meera X

There is sunlight warming her face.

A bird caws somewhere above her and the sound of basking wings echoes all around.

The scent of pines and wet, rich earth fills her nostrils and Meera finds peace in that, finds peace in the fact that here she is safe. Here she can _rest_.

“Are you sure about that?”

Meera startles and whirls around, her nostrils flaring as she scans the forest for whoever just spoke.

Her eyes widen.

There, leaning against a tree trunk like he’s always been there, stands Zalli.

He’s got a smudge of something brownish green smeared on his cheek where it clashes horribly with his skin tone, and there are leaves and pine needles stuck in his hair. It’s still slicked back, she notices belatedly. He’s still in his armor, in that stupid Hesperos armor set that she and Tora had teased him about endlessly when he first got it. The paint is still chipped in a few places, that awful mustard-yellow still looking as worn as when he fished it out of Rahool’s pile of discarded armor pieces back in the day. Back before everything went to _shit_.

“Zalli.”

“Hey there, Mee. Having fun, are we?”

“You’re—why? _How_?”

Zalli chuckles and wiggles his fingers at her teasingly. “_Magic_.”

A scowl replaces confusion.

“You’re not wanted here. Go _away_. I don’t want you here.”

“Tough luck, little one,” Zalli sighs and pushes off the tree. In three strides he is there, right in front of her, and his hands are warm and brittle as he puts them on her cheeks. “You’re never going to be rid of me. I have my hooks in you, little fish, and a dragon never lets’ go of their prey.”

“You’re no dragon,” Meera seethes. She tries to yank her head out of his grasp, but Zalli’s hands are firm and not moving an inch, despite her struggling. “You’re a _parasite_.”

Zalli frowns at that.

“Such crude words from one so sweet,” he croons and his thumb caresses her skin, the nail there digs in just a little bit. “Do you really think so? That I am a parasite? Not fit to be in the presence of the esteemed Young Wolf?”

“Not here,” Meera says and once more tries to wrestle out of his hold. Still not budging. “Here I am not the Young Wolf. Just—”

“Just the God Slayer, yes, yes, I _know_. I’ve seen you with that title quite a few times now, after all,” Zalli muses and raises an eyebrow at her. “It truly is a wonder how you have not buckled yet. Creatures of Light are so very resilient. It is extraordinary.”

“I’d take that as a compliment if it were anyone but _you_.”

“Oh, you do not like this form?” Zalli’s eyes widen as a wide smile twists his handsome face. “Why, does this shape appeal to you instead?”

One moment it is Zalli’s face with lilac clean-shaven features, slickened black hair and purple eyes she is staring up into, and in the next one she sees instead sunburnt skin, scruff, dark brown hair and gentle, so very _gentle_, brown eyes.

Andal Brask smiles somberly as he looks down at her.

“Is this better, sweetheart?”

Meera’s fist lashes out without thought and the smack of flesh hitting flesh is so very satisfying to her ears.

Andal’s face is smacked backwards as he lets out a soft ‘_oompf_’ and falls onto his rear. There is a red mark on his left cheek and he cradles it as he stares up at her with wide eyes.

“Don’t. You. Fucking. _Dare_,” Meera seethes and raises her hand once more as if to pummel him again. “Change _back_!”

And a twisted smile curls Andal’s lips is all the warning she gets before everything goes dark.

“As you Wish.”

* * *

_Is this what you Wish for? _

The familiar hum of the hangars breaks Meera out of her stupor.

She's in her ship, sitting in the cockpit and looking at the tacky stickers fastening that old photograph of her, Tora and Zalli sitting around Sepiks Prime's remains with giant smiles still plastered on the inside of the glass. She presses her fingers to that photograph. Bites her lip when she feels the worn material gently scratch at her fingertips.

She was so happy back then.

_They_ were so happy back then.

Everything was so much easier when she was still masquerading as a newly Risen Guardian, barely more than a year and a half ago, and yet all it took for everything to fall apart was one damn moment. One single moment where Meera threw caution to the wind and kissed the man she loved with witnesses.

_It doesn't have to be this way _

"Easy enough for you to say," she mumbled and scowl at the shape she can barely see out of the corner of her eye. "You're not the one who lost a friend to fucking _politics_."

_I have lost _

"_What_, exactly?"

_Everything... my kin to those like you, Guardians. Brother saved me_

“And that makes all of this alright then?”

“Well,” Andal’s voice comes up from behind her. She stiffens when firm arms wrap around her. “It wasn’t as if I was given much choice in this. The two of you were so _close_ in that prison. So full of desperation and regret. A most wondrous meal for one such as I. Brother was more than eager to help, especially when he saw how I appeared to him. I assumed that the same would work for you and your artificial lover, if I presented it the right way.”

“Brother…” Meera frowns. There is something nagging in the back of her head, something that tells her that she _should know_ whoever this ‘Brother’ is that the Ahamkara speaks of. It sounds… _familiar_. “Who?”

But Andal—_the Ahamkara_—chuckles.

“The Reef holds many secrets. What orbits you closer than anything else does as well. There are plenty of mysteries for you to uncover out there in the Darkness, little one.”

Andal’s lips press against her cheek, chapped and dry—_familiar_.

Meera shudders in his grasp.

She can feel it. The seductive, creeping grasp of the creature’s power beginning to wrap itself around her. There is a haze that clouds her head, that makes it feel as if she is drowning, despite being on dry land.

“Find me if you dare. Behind spells and wonder, trapped in a gilded cage, just waiting for my Knight in shining armor. _That_ is where you will find me, O Guardian mine.”

And she wakes.

* * *

It’s warm.

For the first time in so very long, Meera wakes up to find herself comfortable and warm.

Something heavy, an arm, is slung over her and she is resting with her back against a hard chest. The scent of gun oil, of the Wilds—_Cayde_—is thick in the air around her, even as the fresh forest air mixes with it and mellows it out.

Meera groans and rubs idly against her forehead. Her entire head feels so _fuzzy_, like she has woken from a dream but still has one foot trapped inside of it. Like everything around her is a haze.

And as for Andal—

She stops. Frowns.

There was something there. Something that she should have remembered, because she _knows_ that she dreamt about something important. She _knows_.

But as swiftly as the confusion has come over her, it disappears again. Nothing but the feeling of safety and comfort remains, and Meera lets out a happy little noise as she burrows beneath the covers, trying to get closer to Cayde and the amount of body-heat that he generates.

Being like this, it reminds her of another time she woke up this way. When her biggest fear was waking up and being back in that fucking Prison, back to see Cayde fall to his death, fearing that she will have to go through another attempt to try and _get things right_. Here in hindsight, everything back then was much easier than the shitshow she’s found herself in this time with no Light, no Ghost and the beckoning promises of an Ahamkara lurking in the back of her head.

Her bedpartner lets out something that is either a snort or a mumble and Meera squeaks when she is moved without warning from resting on her side to suddenly find herself on top of Cayde’s chest, still trapped by the arm he’s gotten wrapped around her in his sleep.

But he’s here.

He’s really here. Just like he _promised_.

She lifts a hand and gingerly lets her fingers touch the metal plates making up his face.

Cayde is asleep, pretty deeply, too, and the wonders that it works on his face is nothing short of marvelous. There are no traces of the ever-present tiredness that she remembers him sporting practically every single day back before they split up, no traces of the harried fear dogging him at every moment until he could see her again. He’s just… Cayde. Her delightfully carefree Cayde.

Her hand dips lower, caresses the synth-skin that covers up everything between his plating, and that is when she feels them.

The gouges.

Tiny, barely noticeable grooves that have been carved meticulously into the otherwise pristine plating that protects him.

She’s not the only one with scars. Only difference is that hers are not always visible, while Cayde’s most definitely are of both kinds.

And yet.

There is still so much goodness left in him, even though he has had to witness loss after loss after loss. Again and again, he has stood by and watched as Andal Brask has been taken from this world, much too young. She’s seen it too, now. Granted, what she was shown was an illusion, but the sensations, the emotions? That’s all been real. It has to be.

But Cayde…

_Oh, Cayde_, she sighs mentally and burrows closer to him.

Cayde, blissfully unaware, simply mumbles something in his sleep and the arm that is wrapped around her squeezes for a moment before he makes another noise, sounding quite satisfied with himself. It presses on her injuries, makes pangs of bright hot pain race throughout her body, but Meera has endured more than her fair share of pain lately. A little bit more, if that is what it takes to be close to Cayde again, that is _nothing_.

And besides, he is _so warm_.

The Solar Light that powers Cayde radiates from him like heat from a furnace, and it warms Meera’s chilled hands as she tries to warm up the rest of her body. Inside of her it feels as if there is something _missing_, like her core temperature has crashed and burned into the negatives, and Cayde is so wonderfully hot, even if it feels like he is toasting her extremities.

She’s missed it.

She’s missed _him_.

There are noises coming from outside. People milling about, probably beginning their day, and a cock apparently decides then and there that now is the best time to shrill out a wakeup call for everyone within hearing distance.

Meera winces, the noise from the damn bird horribly loud, and beneath her, Cayde inhales a snort as he wakes up in a flurry of moving limbs and tangled sheets.

“Uh—_gah_!”

With a pained _oof_, the two of them fall to the ground, as tangled as they are between the sheets and themselves, and Meera ends up on his chest, looking straight into Cayde’s optics. This close it’s easy enough to see how his eyes are half-lidded, still heavy with sleep, and she blinks when his jaw stretches obscenely wide in a yawn.

“Hi…”

Internally Meera winces, because she’s sounding like a simpering breathless teenager who’s barely wet behind the ears. What the actual fuck is wrong with her?

But her voice seems to get Cayde to focus, because he rubs at his eyes and then narrows them as he looks her over, almost like he isn’t really sure that what he’s seeing before himself is actually real.

A hand runs down her back, squeezes carefully here and there on her hips, and then his eyes go from narrowed and half-mast to wide, almost like in shock.

“…Meera?”

His hopeful voice is nearly enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“Yeah?”

In a flash he is sitting up and wrapping her in his arms, mumbling nonsensical words into her hair as he rocks her back and forth. There is a brief moment when her head reels from sitting upright way too fast, where all she catches is ‘really here’, before it all turns into mumbles once more, and that is when she feels them.

The fucking tears.

They’re trickling down her cheeks, soaking both themselves and the bedsheets below them, as he holds her as tight as her injuries permit.

“I missed you, Cayde,” she manages to get out, even though her voice is mangled by the thick lump getting stuck in her throat. A wet burst of laughter escapes her as she squeezes him tighter around the neck. “So much.”

He draws back and the smile on his face is doing absolutely _nothing_ for her self-control. Carefully, as if she is made of glass and not flesh and blood, he cradles her cheeks in the palms of his hands, thumbs softly caressing her skin as he just keeps looking at her.

And for a while it is just the two of them, sitting there on the dirty floor in the tangled sheets, smiling at each other like utter _idiots_, and just basking in the presence of the other. Outside, the cock shrieks again, but neither of them pays it any attention. Instead, Meera’s eyes lower to follow Cayde’s hands as they trace up and down her arms, one hand running his knuckles along the slope of her neck, the other gingerly touching every inch of skin that he can get away with without it turning indecent.

“Thought I was dreamin’,” Cayde says. His eyes flicker up now and then to look at her, as if to reassure himself that she is actually here. “Thought I’d wake up in the middle of nowhere with Solaris in the next room over, snorin’ up a storm, and you wouldn’t _be_ there…”

“I’m sorry, Cayde.”

The words tumble out before she can stop them. Not that she really wants to, because _certain things_ needs to be said.

His eyes shoot up and his brows furrow.

“Excuse me?”

Meera swallows. Her eyes fall to look down at her hands instead, lying limply in her lap. If she looks up at him it won’t end pretty. She _knows_ it.

“You ain’t…” Cayde hesitates and swallows, sounding mighty furious for a sec as he seems to try and find the proper words to use. Meera just waits patiently. “You ain’t got _nothin’_ to apologize for, Mee. I shouldn’t have—”

“But I do!” she interrupts, still looking down. The tears are pressing on the back of her eyes. “I—I ran away _like a coward_, I never contacted _anyone_ even though I promised that I would, and I didn’t—”

“None of that matters now, you hear me?” Cayde is sounding just a little bit desperate as he grabs a hold of her shoulders and gives her a firm shame. “_Do you understand_? You’re _here_, Mee. Here, with me, right where you are supposed to be. So please, for the love of all that’s good and holy, don’t say that now. It ain’t—_you ain’t_—FUCK!”

He is breathing hard by the end of that little tirade of his. His hands are not hurting her as they’re wrapped around her shoulders, but they’re a bit firmer than she’d like them to be.

But she doesn’t move.

She’s afraid of what might happen if she does.

“Cayde…”

“I really want to kiss you right now, Mee,” he says, sounding just a little bit like something is stuck in his throat.

His words make a sudden rush of warmth run through her chest, and it settles in her gut. Only, these butterflies seem to have made it a mission of making her nauseous.

“I—uh, w-wha—”

When he suddenly scowls, however, Meera cuts herself off as Cayde rambles on. “Pro’lly shouldn’t do it in Shaxx’s _bed_, though. Guy’s going to be pissed with a capital P if he finds out.”

Meera blinks.

Wow, just like that.

Leave it to Cayde to go from a sweet comment to utterly throw her for a loop. And all of it in less than thirty fucking seconds.

Her mouth opens and closes a few times as she tries to form the right words, as she tries to figure how the Hell she should respond to _that_.

Somehow, while her mind has no idea how to handle what just happened, the rest of her apparently does, because Meera suddenly leans forward as laughter begins bubbling out of her.

And the best part of it all?

Cayde joins in.

* * *

She doesn’t remember the dream.

She knows that it is—_was_ important, but for the life of her she can’t remember what it was about.

Well, no matter. She’ll remember it eventually.

* * *

The mirth dies, eventually.

Cayde notices, because of course he does, when she falls quiet and just looks up at the ceiling of Shaxx’s little hut.

“Mee? You alright?”

She nods, but it’s an automatic response. Somehow, Meera really isn’t too sure if her voice is going to hold up if she starts talking. And there is a feeling of… well, _something_ gnawing in her gut.

The sense that something is _wrong_.

“I feel… weird.”

“You’re safe,” Cayde sits up immediately and drags her into his lap. He’s got a manic look about him. “Ya hear me? There ain’t _nothin_’ that’ll—”

“It’s not that, Cayde,” Meera interrupts him and huddles closer to him. Her eyes close as the comfortable warmth spreads out from him and into her body. By the _Light_, it’s so fucking cold. “It’s not…”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t… the Light,” she fumbles for the right words, wrings her hands and instinctively just knows that she is looking downright miserable right now. “It doesn’t… feel right.”

“How… how do you mean?”

Cayde, bless his heart, sounds just about as confused as she feels.

But now that she has tried to get the words out it is much easier to identify what it is that she is feeling.

It’s the Shard.

She can feel it in the back of her mind, looming ominously like a vengeful being, and just waiting for her to do something to anger it. She can feel the strange Light that comes off of it in waves, and while there is a part of her that yearns and longs to be a part of that Light once more, to be able to see and feel her Ghost again, it also feels… dangerous. It feels so damn dangerous.

“The Shard,” she manages to get out, but her voice is quiet now, much more subdued. “It doesn’t feel right.”

Cayde looks at her for a little while, face unreadable, until he reaches up to brush his thumb soothingly across her cheek. “I know it doesn’t feel right. Trust me, _I know_. Went to it to get a chance at findin’ you, y’know.”

“What?”

“It’s true,” Cayde nods and smirks in that cocky devil-may-care way that he always does when he’s about to brag. “Went up to it and asked all nice and polite if I could have the Light back. Didn’t realize that it’d feel like it does, but it’s, y’know, nice. At least it ain’t cold no more.”

“Still cold for me,” she whispers and leans into his touch. “It’s so damn _cold_.”

“Well, you ain’t covered in frost, so there’s that.”

He means for it to be a joke, a bit of funny respite from the hellish situation she’s been stuck in back on Venus, but there is just _something _about his words, something that pierces her straight through and suddenly—

—_the cold cuts through her armor clings to her skin as she tries to ward it off and it’s so _cold_ she wants to be gone from here wants back into the Light wants Cayde wants Tora wants Zalli wants someone to fucking _come and get her—

—she gasps for breath as she struggles to keep the memories as far away as she can manage because she can’t she can_’t she CAN’T DO THIS NO—_

“Meera!”

Cayde’s voice.

He cuts through it. Cuts through the haze that was beginning to creep along the edges of her vision and Meera blinks rapidly until what she sees in front of her has a solid shape and isn’t just formless blobs.

“I—I…”

The words are lost to her. What is she even supposed to say after something like this?

“Meera?”

Cayde’s voice, again. It is calm and curious. Hesitant is perhaps a better word for it.

“I—I don’t… Cayde, I’m not… alright.”

“You’re going to be alright, Meera. I know you are.”

She looks up at him and when she sees the hopeful look in his eyes she is almost overcome with fury. Somewhere deep, deep inside of her the fury hisses and screeches as she looks at him. Because, how _dare he_ assume that just because he came, just because he _saved her_, that he has the right to declare how everything will be from now on?

Meera isn’t stupid. She knows that she’s… damaged. That whatever happened with the Ahamkara and herself out on Venus was bad in every sense and meaning of the word. And she knows that they don’t have time for damaged Guardians—and is she even still one of the Traveler’s favored children?—to get better after harrowing near-death experiences.

She _knows_.

Time for it later. There has to be time to process everything later.

“I know, Cayde,” she hears herself say and she paints a smile upon her lips. It feels brittle and fake, but she has to try for him. After all, he’s gone through so much trouble to keep her safe.

The least she could do is be grateful.

“Now, c’mon,” Cayde says as he stands up and smiles, so blissfully ignorant that it cuts into her heart to look at for even a moment. “Need to take you around, and talk to all them important folks.”

She takes his hand, still smiling that brittle lie, and lets him haul her up onto her own two feet.

“Lead the way, Space Cowboy.”

* * *

The very first thing that needs to be covered before the two of them are going to see _anyone_ is a bath.

It feels like there is a year’s worth of grime covering her body, and for all that she knows that could very well be true as there still are pretty big gaps in her mind scattered sporadically.

So, off to the baths they go.

Hot water in large quantities is still a luxury, no matter how efficient the Farm seems to be getting, and most people seem to just jump in the lake and do whatever it is they need to do in a damn hurry before getting up on dry land once more.

Not Meera, though.

She’s been cold for too damn long to give a fuck about how long it’ll take for her to get a hot bath, but by the Traveler, she’ll get one if it’s the last damn thing she does.

Cayde is immensely helpful in this endeavor.

“I hope you realize that this is a gross misuse of our power as Guardians, right?” he asks as he squats beside the tub now filled with steaming water.

Meera just leans back in the tub and sighs as the warmth begins creeping out into her extremities. This, now _this_, is what true happiness must feel like.

“So warm,” she mumbles as she sits there and just soaks up as much of the warmth that is enveloping her. One of her hands hangs over the edge of the tub and she startles for a moment when something cooler tangles with them. When she looks down at her hand, she sees Cayde’s fingers wrapped up in hers, his eyes locked on their joined hands. “Cayde?”

“Hmm?” he answers without looking up at her. It’s like their hands being intertwined like this is all he needs, and she can’t say that she blames him.

It feels… really, really nice to touch him again.

“Why’d you stick around?” the question is out before she can stop herself, and Meera bites her lip when she sees how he tenses beside her.

“What’d you mean?”

“After heating the water,” she elabotes. “Why’d you stay here?”

“What, you want me to leave?”

“Did I say that, Cayde?”

“Well, no, but—”

“I asked you a question, nothing more. Why’d you stick around?”

“Well, ain’t like you’ve got something I haven’t really seen before, y’know.”

“And?”

“And…” he rubs at the back of his head, looking just a bit embarrassed. “I, uh… Ireallydidn’twannaleaveyaalonealright?”

Meera just… blinks for a few moments there. That… that was just a bit too fast for her.

“Uh, can I get that one more time?”

Cayde scowls.

“I said, I didn’t want to leave ya alone, alright? Haven’t seen you in too damn long, woman, and you think I’ll just let you out of my sight just like that? Maybe I ain’t the one with the screws loose no more.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Cayde mutters and ducks his head down. “_Oh_.”

Silence spreads between the two of them.

“You said it yourself,” Cayde picks up the conversation haltingly, like he’s afraid of how this is going to turn out. “You ain’t alright. I, uh… fuck, but this is goin’ to sound so damn weird.”

“Cayde, I am naked in a tub full of warm water with my mentor sitting right beside me and holding my hand. I think we’ve stepped beyond ‘weird’ at this point.”

“Point taken,” he chuckles and sneaks a glance up at her. The amount of hope in his eyes is almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. “What I meant to say was just that… well… uh, I still want you. And by want you I mean like the thing we had before everything went to shit, y’know, what with the arguments and the resentment and the death an—”

Meera kisses him.

It’s not a very long kiss, or even one of the better ones that they’ve shared over the years. But it’s a nice and quiet kiss, the kind that one might give their partner after a long day of work when they come home tired and spent. Just a light peck on the lips is all that she gives him, but Cayde shuts up immediately and leans into it. His optics go from fully alert to half-lidded to fully closed and Meera closes her own as well because this feels _right_.

It’s the first thing in a long, long while that actually feels right.

When they separate both of them are breathing just a bit heavier than before, and Meera is sure that her cheeks are flushed from more than just the heat inside the bathroom, but it could not be more perfect.

“Cayde-6, you’ve got too much heart.”

“Phah, ain’t heard that one before,” he chuckles, coughing for just a moment to clear this throat. “_Ahem_, now, uh—where were we?”

Meera can’t help it. She laughs—finally lets loose the laughter that has been hidden away inside of her for so very long—and has to wipe away a few tears as her entire body shakes from mirth.

“You’re such a fool.”

“Wha—don’t you judge me, I wasn’t the one molesting my superior just moments before.”

“Oh, _molesting_, huh? Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

"Well, it sure as shit wasn't innocent, I'll tell ya that!"

It’s easy.

Safe.

Their old banter is up and running as if they’ve never been apart, as if the past eighteen or so months had never happened, and this, this is all that Meera needs.

She is not alright, and she certainly won’t be for a long, long while, but Cayde is here with her, they are together again, and there is no force in the universe that will be able to keep her from him.

She has seen what a world without Cayde felt like, looked like.

And it will never happen.

_Never_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on the chapter are most welcome :)


	22. intermission (Tora)

There is something wrong with Meera.

While Tora is a Warlock, and quite the stellar one in his own humble opinion since he’s managed to become a Stormcaller and all that jazz, he is not always the brightest star in the sky in terms of the brain department.

Take Ikora, for example. Poised, _regal_, an absolute menace if one is unlucky enough to get on her bad side, and the Light forbid you ever face her in the Crucible, if the rumors are to be believed.

Tora is practically the complete opposite. He’s got a mouth with no filter between it and his brain, he’s always too loud or too quiet—finding that hair-fine balance really isn’t all that easy sometimes, a’right?—and if he isn’t elbows deep in muck out somewhere in the boonies to try and find some new interesting stashes of supplies, he’ll be squealing over the new selection of guns that Banshee and Shaxx haul out.

Zalli changes that.

Or—well, the thing is—see—

No, Zalli changes that. And Meera too.

Suddenly Tora no longer pulls unsuspecting Guardians along for a joyride and possibly the beginnings of a heart attack. No, instead he actually _thinks_.

Uses the eyes and ears that Mother Nature or God or the Traveler or whoever outfitted him with.

And he uses them on the people that he knows.

On Zalli.

On Meera.

And by the Light, but the hilarity and sadness that greets him is enough for him to want to pull out his hair.

Meera, Meera, Meera… oh, but she either has her head stuck in the clouds or her eyes glued to the Hunter Vanguard’s ass. Not that Tora can blame her, because leather is definitely doing Cayde-6 all of the right kind of favors, and his ass ain’t all that bad to look at either, so. Well. At least Zalli has some healthy competition, if he ever gets enough of his act together to actually do a takeoff and actually _do_ something.

The fool is hopelessly in love with their little Hunter, anyone with a functioning pair of eyes can see that. Zalli moons and pines like a lovestruck teenager, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Tora can’t really be sure whether or not it’ll fuck up their group dynamic, he’d be over there and playing matchmaker faster than Shaxx can scream ‘_grenade_’ in a Mayhem match. In his mind’s eye, he can almost see it play out.

Zalli will bumble over and hold out a bouquet of not-yet-determined flowers. He’s a traditional little shit so he might just go with the cliché roses. Or tulips? Hmm, nah, maybe he’ll actually have to think about that one. But! Flowers. Yes, definitely flowers. And—and they’re going to be slightly smushed, because Zalli always has been a nervous wreck whenever he feels like he’s being put out into a new, uncertain situation and—

—and then Zalli is dead.

In the blink of an eye, he’s gone.

Strewn about like ash in the wind.

Eaten alive by SIVA in a bunker far below the earth where old, forgotten tech reigns supreme.

Gone due to the Vanguard’s orders.

And Meera does not take that prettily.

Where Tora sinks into a safe meditative state of trying to bury down everything—he has to be cool and collected, has to work through this in a methodical, rational way because if he doesn’t he is going to _explode_—Meera is fury and fire and everything that Tora wishes he could be.

He’s been there with her every step of the journey since she wandered about, looking lost and confused. He’s seen her lows and her highs and her joy and her sadness. She’s been so sad. So many times has he seen her sit in their shared campsite, just looking at Zalli and then him. He’s caught her eyes sometimes and she has hurried to look anywhere else. And sometimes he’s managed to fool her into thinking that she’s not been caught.

And she has looked so sad. Like she’s lost someone who was so very precious to her.

Maybe she remembers the time before, he thinks one time when he catches her staring. She hasn’t noticed him yet. Yes. Maybe she remembers bits and pieces. It is not unheard of, even if most of the Guardians who remember tidbits of their past lives tend to be Exo.

Everything was so much easier back when he thought that.

Now… now he isn’t too sure.

No one can act like Meera and not have lost something. He sees it now, clear as day, when he sits by her bedside and looks at her. Looks at the nicks and bruises on her skin, sees how she is drowning in his spare shirt. A stray lock of greasy hair is strewn across her forehead and he gently puts it back into place behind her ear.

He thinks he can see it now. What must have driven Zalli silly.

The wildness, the energy, the Light.

Now there isn’t much of anything left in Meera. Nothing except the sadness and the despair and this curling, oily thing that had her voice and her mannerisms and her looks. And yet.

And yet.

It wasn’t her.

But she isn’t alright.

Wherever she has been for the past sixteen or eighteen months, something has been broken inside of her. That fire and passion that had her blaze a trail for him and Zalli to follow is a lackluster firecracker that’s already half-fizzled, and everything inside of Tora is screaming at him to sit down with her and _talk_. They need to do it. He knows that. He knows that she knows it.

But he’s afraid.

What if she runs away again? What if she doesn’t make it?

He’s watched her every single day since they touched down on the Farm, and when she isn’t being coddled to an insane degree by the Hunter Vanguard, he sees her sit somewhere private, coughing and wheezing. There are blackened stains on her gums and something _wild_ in her eyes, but it is a different sort of wild than what he is used to.

It is a wild that one sees in a caged predator, moments away from jumping up and mauling whoever is threatening it.

And Tora knows better than most just how dangerous Meera can be.

He has seen her rip the heart from a Prime Servitor like it was nothing, has helped her down Hive Gods and Vex idols. For fuck’s sake, he’s delved into the personal lair of Crota himself with her because Eris Morn got into her head and started spouting nonsense about avenging ancient Fireteams and Hive voodoo and who even knows what else that woman has stored up in her sleeves. Probably a dead Thrall or something, he wouldn’t be surprised at all if that was the case.

But, getting back on track, Tora has seen Meera love strongly enough to nearly tear the friendship apart.

Cayde is a goner and Tora knows that—he has a pair of functioning eyes, after all. It’s plain as day how he feels about Tora’s favorite human. But Meera.

Tora is not foolish enough to straight up ask her, but he is pretty sure that if anything or anyone tried to get anywhere near the Hunter Vanguard with the intent to hurt him, she would be up their ass before they even knew what was going on. Honestly, it scares him. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

He sees the way that Cayde-6 looks at her, like he is willing to give the Sun and the Moon and the stars to boot, if only she asked it of him. And he sees the way that Meera looks at her Vanguard, like she is willing to move mountains for him, to keep him safe no matter what, and all he has to do for that to happen would be to ask her.

Not that she is going to be doing a whole lot of mountain-moving as she is right now, coughing up black phlegm and barely aware long enough to keep a steady conversation for more than twenty minutes at a time.

How they’re going to get out of this one he has no idea, but they’ll figure it out.

They always do.


	23. Cayde XI

On the surface everything is _great_.

Cayde’s got his girl back, they’re safe and secure here on the Farm, and it looks like Zavala and Ikora are elbows-deep in figuring out how to find a way into the City and _not_ die from their lack of Light.

Not to mention, their reaction to him regaining the Light through somewhat-shady means is freaking _hilarious_.

“You went to the Shard of the Traveler, an unknown entity, and just—Cayde-6, are you out of your damn mind?” Zavala’s voice sounds more and more like thunder as his neck and ears are busy transforming from light blue to a deeper purple. He is probably pissed. It seems like the default state of Zavala most days, anyway.

“In my defense,” Cayde starts arguing. “It all worked out and now you got _two_ Guardians with the Light back, even if it’s the shittier and pirated bootleg version of it. C’mon, big guy, it ain’t _that_ bad.”

“It is when we have no idea what this means, Cayde,” Ikora, bless her Warlock smarts and heart, interjects. “For all that we know, this could have a negative effect on your ability to regain the Traveler’s Light if we succeed in taking back the City.”

“Then we’ll tackle that obstacle when we get there, Ikora. For now, can’t we just be happy that we’re a little bit better off than before? I mean, not to brag or anything, but I’ve got the feeling that things are going to be a whole lot easier than it could have been if we’d only had, like, _one_ Guardian with their Light back. Imagine if we had to send them across the System for who knows what, just to try and help the cause?”

He blends truth into the lies because that is and always will be the easiest method to not get immediately discovered when dealing with bullshitting others.

And besides, he’s had hundreds of lifetimes to get used to Ikora and Zavala’s mannerisms, how they tick inside, which things to say and which things to avoid, how to get out of as much paperwork, and the list just goes on.

Long story short, he _knows_ them.

And he knows when he’s close to winning.

“I don’t like it,” Zavala grumbles as he starts pacing. All he ever fucking does is pacing. “There are too many variables.”

“Because Guardians are just _so_ _great_ at following plans in the first place, right?” Cayde says and his grin has to be wide enough to be bordering on obnoxious.

Zavala whirls around and looks about ready to murder him.

“While we all have our difficulties, I would be more comfortable sending out someone else,” Ikora comments as she looks over both of them. The way that her eyes keep drifting back to Cayde again and again is just the slightest bit concerning. Or, _worrying_ might be a better word. “As much as I am proud of what Tora Solaris has managed to do in his time as a Guardian, and especially over the last few years, the fact remains that those who have been a part of that Fireteam has been and still are at odds with those of a higher authority. We saw it with Quill, and to a lesser extent with Solaris, during the Taken War, but I am afraid that I cannot in good faith send him back out there.”

“He’s the only choice we have, other than me. The two of us are the only Guardians with the Light, Ikora. Means we can’t _die_.”

“And we are well aware of that. But neither of you should be leaving anytime soon. Cayde, you and Solaris just got your Light back, coupled with being gone for _weeks_. There is no telling what reconnecting with the Light means for either of you, and for all that we know there could be aftereffects that simply haven’t come up yet.”

For all that Cayde knows there might very well be aftereffects. He’s got no damn idea, since Meera weren’t really talkative about how it felt to have the Shard’s Light imbued into her way back when.

“We’ll figure it out, but if it’ll get both of ya off my damn back, I’ll stick around, alright? Won’t be forever, but long enough for you to stop bein’ so damn trigger happy.”

“Cayde-6—”

“What Zavala means is ‘_thank you_’, I believe,” Ikora interrupts before the Titan-combustion can begin, sadly. Damn it, he’s been looking forward to seeing something interesting happen for once. “Now, I believe we should go cool off before something catches on fire. With the way that you two have been pacing around and eyeing your weaponry, I’d say Shaxx would have more use of your planning skills right now than me.”

Cayde gasps dramatically and lets his optics widen to the best of their ability. “Ikora Rey, you _wound me_.”

“No, but I _will_ if you don’t go bug someone else. I am _not_ scraping your remains together for Sundance to revive if the Commander decks you.”

Zavala scowls at Ikora’s words, but they all know that she’s right. Warlocks typically are, the bastards. In any case, he stalks out of the room they are busy redecorating like their good’ol hub, leaving Ikora and Cayde behind.

“So… that went well.”

Ikora fixes him with a _look_. “Cayde.”

“What?”

“Zavala is under enough stress as it is. You and Solaris running off to who knows where and coming back with the one missing Guardian from his Fireteam is more than just a little suspect.”

“He needed help.”

“I am not telling you off for doing it. If anything, we need as much firepower as we can possibly muster right now. The reason why I say this is that you _worried us_, Cayde.”

Well, he… has no great answer to that one.

“Never meant to worry you. I just didn’t—I didn’t think ‘bout it like that.”

“You seldom do,” Ikora sighs but at least she isn’t looking like she is ready to blow something up. “It’s one of the things I admire about you, Cayde.”

“Ex_cuse me_? Ikora Rey, admiring something about _me_?” Cayde gawks. If he is preening just a little, Ikora has the decency to look past it. “Why I didn’t know you felt that way, Miss Rey.”

“Stop the shenanigans for once, Cayde,” Ikora laughs now, and she walks over to put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Your ability to just _decide _something and then go do it, not thinking about the consequences until you’re done, that is a level of spontaneousness that I _wish_ I could have had.”

“It’s never too late to learn new tricks, Ikora,” Cayde smiles right back at her. “Next time we both have some spare time, come get me and I’ll take you through a whole course of how to be spontaneous. The Cayde edition, that is.”

“Sounds… fun.”

“Very extensive training is included, of course.”

“Of course,” Ikora is humoring his little tangent, it is easy enough to see, but Cayde is on a roll and what a roll it is.

“Filled with charts an’ graphs an’ everythin’.”

“I have complete faith in your training curriculum, Cayde. When things are quieter… and when we have more time.”

She probably thinks that he misses it, that he is soaring up in the clouds with his grand ideas of fun and misadventures, but he doesn’t. Cayde does not miss the way that her eyes go from content to worried, how the smallest frown appears between her brows, how her shoulders sag.

Ikora is afraid.

He gets it, he’s been where she is right now. Lightless, without any real plan to take back the City. She only has one life and he has several. Alongside Tora, right now Cayde is one of the most capable—not to mention _deadly_—people they have on call right now.

All they need now is getting Meera back from whatever funk she is stuck in and then—

_“I—I don’t… Cayde, I’m not… alright.”_

Meera’s words flashes through his head, halts his train of thought. Something must show on his face, because Ikora’s eyes narrow and she immediately swoops in.

“Cayde? Is everything alright?”

“Hm? Oh, y-yeah, Ikora, everything’s fine. It’s just—Quill.”

“What about her?”

“When we found her… she wasn’t…”

“She was out on a mission when the Cabal attacked, correct?”

Cayde swallows. It does next to nothing to make the lump in his throat disappear. “Yeah, she was.”

“Being so far from the Traveler, out there in the darkness of space… I couldn’t even imagine how lonely that must feel. She has my condolences.”

“Thanks, but that ain’t—y’see, the reason I said it was that—” he cuts himself off. Something is twisting inside of his chest, angry and slippery. This whole thing here that he and Meera has going on isn’t Ikora’s problem. He hopes to the Light and the Traveler that it never will be. Ever. The two of them have enough trouble containing it themselves, there is no reason to drag more people into it.

“Yes?”

“It’s just… she worries me, y’know. And I was wonderin’ if you could, maybe… uh, talk to her?”

“How do you mean, ‘talk to her’? Is she still not recovering?”

“Well, I mean… she’s mortal now. And when Solaris and I found her she wasn’t exactly… well, _well_. She still ain’t.”

“You want me to talk to her, I take it.”

“If you can find the time for it, yeah. Maybe, fuck, I don’t know, just—_urgh_!”

“I don’t quite get what it is that you want me to do here, Cayde. If she requires help, she should go to you, her Vanguard.”

“I don’t think that I can give her the help that she needs. She is… she says that the Light doesn’t feel _right_, Ikora. And that scares me.”

If Ikora is surprised by his outburst there, she sure doesn’t show it.

“You’re saying that… the Light is not resonating with her anymore?”

“How have you felt being this near the Shard?” he asks, ignoring how desperate he sounds right now. “Have you felt more at ease, more tense? Something else?”

Ikora leans back and folds her arms across her chest, contemplating her answer, no doubt. “I have… felt apprehension. I won’t lie, Cayde, being this near something that was removed from the Traveler ought to instill some sense of fear into all living here. It has twisted the Light into something else, maybe something that isn’t quite Light anymore, but just similar enough for us to accept it. And at the same time, I cannot help but feel like I should _go_ to it, go and regain my Light, just like you and Tora Solaris have done. The chance to be useful to the people we have gathered here, all of them hoping to launch a successful counterattack, is exhilarating.”

“I can tell ya that it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Those words might very well be the truest ones he will ever speak.

“So you say. Yet, you cannot die, Cayde. You and Tora are our best hope against Ghaul and his forces. Against the Almighty that hangs in orbit around our Sun.”

“We’ll get them, Ikora. I know we will.”

“I hope that you are right, Cayde. But, to answer your previous question, if you are truly this worried for your protégé, then I will do what I can to speak with her, maybe clear up whatever doubt she may have. But I cannot promise miracles.”

Cayde risks a smile, just a little one. “I know, Ikora. But thank you anyway.”

* * *

Ikora is afraid and Cayde does not know how he feels about that.

She has always been this quiet pillar of calm and reassurance, the one whose emotions would never get the best of her, no matter what.

But she is afraid.

And that _terrifies_ him.

* * *

Time passes.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Tora is cleared for active duty way before Cayde is—no doubt Zavala’s attempt at clever planning to keep Cayde exactly where they want him to be—and the Warlock is sent out to wreak havoc on the Cabal and their operations across the system.

Cayde could not care less, honestly.

This gives him time to watch over Meera, to make sure that she is getting better.

She seems to be, at least. From what Ikora is telling him she _is_ getting better, and he hopes to the Light and the Traveler that she is.

But even so, there is that little remaining speck of mistrust.

Meera is still so cold. She shivers well into the night every time they lie down to sleep, and the way that she clings to Cayde to give her even just the briefest peek at fire and warmth is worrying.

She is supposed to _get better_.

They don’t have the time for this, for one of their—in his own opinion—very best to be out of commission for much longer. Solaris is getting sent out, doing the missions all on his lonesome that Cayde knows Meera did way back when.

One late afternoon, as they sit huddled beneath the many blankets that their cots are covered with, Cayde turns to her.

“Meera, is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”

She is sitting across his lap with her head tucked beneath his chin and pressing her body as humanely close to his as possible.

“Just hold me,” she whispers. Her voice feels almost brittle, like she is about to break into a thousand pieces if he is not careful enough. “Keep me warm, please.”

He can see how she shivers, how the very tips of her fingers are dusted in fine frost, and he wordlessly agrees.

Cayde holds her much tighter than before, reaches inside of himself and lets the Solar-energy that he prefers roll out across his body.

The soft moan that escapes Meera does _things_ to him, has his processors and fans rev up a storm all on their own. But he stays as still as possible, lets her use him like a glorified somewhat-human sized heating pad, and does his very best to ignore the baser urges that rear their ugly heads inside of him.

This is most certainly _not_ the time.

So he holds her tight, kisses the top of her head.

All they need is time. He knows that everything will be fine if they can just get the _time_ that they need.

Everything will be fine.

* * *

The Farm is busy celebrating Solaris throwing a good ol’fashioned wrench into the back end of Thumos’ carrier when the moment finally hits him.

Cayde is sitting on the outskirts of the celebration with Meera, the two of them curled up beneath thermal blankets with steaming cups of spiced wine warming their hands.

“Hey, Mee?” Cayde fiddles with his mug. There is a crack in the handle that he follows with the tip of one of his fingers.

She looks over at him, mug raised to her lips. “Hmm?”

“Got a question for ya, if you’re feeling up for it.”

“Shoot.”

“Back there in, y’know, where we came from in the first place, yeah?”

She nods for him to continue. “Yes?”

“When you… lost the Light,” Cayde fumbles just a bit with the words. “How’d it feel when you touched the Shard?”

Meera falls quiet. She frowns and opens her mouth after a few seconds as her brows ease up, only to close it again and frown once more.

“Complicated?”

“Yeah,” she says. Her voice is barely louder than a whisper. “A lot of complicated.”

“If you don’t mind me askin’… then, how?”

“You’ve never asked before.”

“I never got the Light back from the Shard before, either.”

“That’s fair, I guess,” she shrugs and takes a big sip of her beverage. “I… well, it was like I was underwater, sometimes. You could hear things and you could see things, but everything was just so… well, _muted_. The Light that I had was never really my own, it didn’t _feel _like it did before. Only thing that made me feel warm back then was channeling Solar energy.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that. God, you _hated _it with a passion.”

“It was too hot when the Traveler finally woke up from its prolonged nap. Felt like I was melting inside my armor. I have no idea how you handle it.”

“I’m just that hot.”

“Funny. Very funny, Cayde.”

“I know,” he snickers and sips his own wine. His free hand snakes its way out of the blanket nest and wraps around Meera’s shoulders to pull her closer. After lowering his mug, Cayde presses a kiss to her forehead. “Still glad you tried it out. Variety’s good for the soul, y’know.”

“Says the man who has rocked the Gunslinger affinity for literally decades.”

“If shit ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Besides, Andal and Shiro usually had the other affinities covered back when I used to run with’em.”

“Who did what?”

“Andal was a Void-addict, just like you,” Cayde says as he leans back against the tree trunk they’re sitting by. “Shiro was usually up and at’em with his Arc-bullshit. It was next to fucking impossible to pin the two of them down, lemme tell ya.”

“How so?”

“So, we’d have these sparring matches every now and then, right?” he waits for her to nod before continuing. “And Andal, the little shithead, kept hurling poison pellets at the two of us, while Shiro would be Blinking left, right and center. Fucking annoying.”

“And what did you do?”

“Oh, I just stood in the middle and shot anything that moved. Maybe I’d place down a few tripmine grenades if I felt perky that day.”

“If you felt _perky_? What are you, a childhood idol?”

“To some kids, sure.”

“Lucky you.”

The hand that is wrapped around her shoulder moves up to gently run over her hair instead. It’s braided today and Cayde would be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying the difference in texture.

“But enough about me,” Cayde sighs and looks down at her. Meera looks like she is ready to nod off any second, comfortable as she is halfway in his lap and letting him pet her hair like he is. “I’m glad that you told me, Meera. ‘Bout how the Shard’s Light felt. Thank you.”

“No worries, Boss,” she sighs and nuzzles closer. Her eyes are drooping dangerously low and her voice is beginning to thicken with sleep. Won’t be long before she dozes off completely. “Anything for you.”

Cayde has no real answer for that one. Seems to be a reoccurring thing for him as of late, what with Ikora and now also Meera making him speechless over the littlest things.

And so he just sits there, watching the revelries continue as the moon rises in the sky and the alcohol flows freely.

At one point Meera starts snoring, signaling to Cayde that she is well and truly deep in sleep. Well, no time like the present to get some proper shuteye. They’ll need it tomorrow for when Tora is going to be infiltrating the _Orobas Vectura_.

He struggles for a moment to get up on his own two feet, seeing as he has a slumbering Guardian plastered to his side, but he does it and without spilling any leftover wine to boot, so there’s that. Cayde does quick work in bundling Meera further into the blankets they’ve snatched, gets her situated in his arms and heads back to the make-shift barracks.

The rooms that the reassembling Guardians have been stationed in are miniscule at best and barely functional at worst, but they’re a warm and dry place to sleep.

Meera’s is no exception.

The mattress squeaks something fierce when he places her down on it, and he can’t help but sigh when he catches the way her face scrunches up when she is put down onto the cooler mattress.

She really is his own personal little marvel, isn’t she?

Cayde stretches his arms and sits down onto the bed, fully intending to just get off his boots, jacket and cloak before curling up beside Meera in blissful, ignorant sleep, when a shrill _ping_ goes off inside his head.

“Message from Hawthorne, Cayde,” Sundance’s presence is announced with a muted flash of Light. “Sounded urgent.”

“Wha—_now_? It’s ass o’clock. And besides, I was headin’ to bed, y’know.”

“Something about the plans for tomorrow.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Cayde grumbles. He fumbles to grab the boot he’s already wrestled off of his foot and begins tying it on once more. The cloak is left off, however, as is the jacket. “Lead the way.”

And so Sundance does.

Hawthorne is by the bonfires, smiling as she listens intently to one of the people helping out here around the Farm, but it doesn’t take long for her to spot Cayde wandering towards her and she leaves whoever she was talking to.

“Did I catch you at a bad time, Mr. Vanguard?” she asks, one eyebrow raised as she takes in his somewhat disheveled appearance, sans jacket and cloak.

“Was about to head to bed, actually. Sundance told me you wanted something?”

He’s not pissy. No, not at all.

“Yeah, I wanted to know where you were planning on being tomorrow when Solaris heads out.”

“Here, setting up some tech.”

“What tech?” Hawthorne frowns and her arms cross. She is not exactly looking hopeful.

“Cloaking devices, actually, if you must know,” Cayde says and holds out his hand. Sundance appears in a flash and transmits one of the devices he has been fiddling with for what feels like _ages_. “Been working on ‘em for a while now, decided to test it.”

“Why?”

“Uh, a Guardian going to town on a Cabal carrier ringin’ any bells? They’ll be up in arms and angrier than a stirred hornet’s nest. Just in case, I’d like the Farm to stay _safe_. We got a lot of civilians here, and I’d like them to stay as safe as possible. Once I know that it’s working, I’ll join the rest of you out near the City.”

“How are you planning on getting there?”

“I think Amanda might be workin’ on something. If not, I’ll walk. It ain’t that far.”

“Cayde, it’s several weeks away, if not _months_, on foot! You can’t just _walk_ to the Last City after you’re done!”

“Well then, got a spaceship I can borrow?”

“I don’t know, are you going to go out and find more wayward Guardians?”

Cayde shakes his head. “Nah, we’ve got everything we need now. All that’s missin’ is some luck from Fate, I think. Here’s to hopin’.”

“You can’t just rely on _luck_ of all things to fix everything.”

“Who says that I’m _only_ relying on luck, here? We’re going to need tactics, brains and some tremendous firepower. I don’t know who you’ve got squirreled away, Hawthorne, but I think that Zavala, Ikora and Shaxx pretty much fit that bill. Add Solaris and myself onto that, and we’re bound to get it right.”

“You’re rambling about maybe’s and if’s. Variables won’t win your war. Certain facts will.”

“Hasn’t stopped me yet.”

“That’s your funeral,” Hawthorne huffs before she turns away from Cayde and starts walking. Her good mood from before seems to have completely soured away. “Damn it, this was nothing but a waste of time.”

Cayde scowls at her retreating back, his own arms crossed. When Sundance hovers near his shoulder and gives him a curious look he simply holds out his hand and she lowers her shell into it, nuzzling up against him. Without another word, Cayde heads back towards the hovel he placed Meera in.

“What exactly happened between the two of you? I don’t remember you ever being so antagonistic with her.”

“Feelings, Sundance. That’s what got between the two of us.”

“Why? Did you flirt with her and then leave her out to dry in the sun?”

“Not intentionally, I can tell ya that much.”

“Oh, Cayde…”

“Don’t ‘Oh, Cayde’ me, you little rascal. Listen, right now the _last_ thing I want to think about is Suraya Hawthorne and the aborted attempt at romance between the two of us. As in, don’t say a thing about it. Not even to Meera.”

“I wasn’t planning to. With the way that things have been between you and Meera, she’s more likely to rip Hawthorne apart than hear her out if she catches wind of you looking elsewhere.”

“You make it sound like she is a jealous ex-girlfriend out for blood.”

“That is not what I mean, Cayde. What I mean is that Meera wants to keep you safe, just as much as you want the same for her. And I don’t think that she thinks much of what might be an obstacle to that goal.”

At that, Cayde stops up.

“Do you really think that?”

“Cayde, I have functional visionary modules, thank you very much. I _know_ that.”

He’s… never thought of it like that.

Sure, he’s seen Meera be borderline aggressive in the past towards those who crossed her. The way that she walked out on the Last City over a year and a half ago is a huge testament to the fact that she does what she wants, with little regard to what the consequences of her choices might mean.

But downright tear someone limb from limp if they threatened him?

No.

She doesn’t have it in her. There is no fucking way.

“You’re full of it, ‘Dance,” he denies, voice gruff. “There’s no way she’d do that.”

“You haven’t seen her, Cayde. There is a certain look in her eyes sometimes. Something _hungry_. It’s always centered on you.”

He waves off his Ghost’s concerns. “Nope, not buying it. I mean, this is _Meera_ we’re talkin’ about here. Right now, she is practically as dangerous as a kitten.”

“A kitten who seemingly froze an entire troupe of Fallen to ice chunks, Cayde! Listen, I am not saying that you should be suspecting her of wrongdoings from the get go, but at least have a bit of apprehension when you’re talking with her. Right now, she is cornered. She literally has nothing left to lose. Those circumstances would make anyone dangerous. You of all people should know that.”

The two of them come to a stop in front of the hovel. Cayde pulls the ragged fabric serving as a door to the side and looks down at the slumbering Guardian lying in the midst of an enormous blanket nest.

She is shivering again.

Frost coats her eyelashes, gives them a white, glittering sheen, and Cayde drops to her side immediately. When he reaches out and touches her, he almost pulls back immediately when the shock of cold hits his sensors.

“We’ll be fine. We have to,” he whispers and then begins to pull off his clothing, hurrying so he can lie down beside Meera in blissful sleep. “We’re so close. We can’t lose it all again now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on the chapter, like always, are appreciated :)


	24. Meera XI

Blood soaks her uniform, her hair, her skin.

_Everything._

And nothing has ever felt this good before.

* * *

This isn’t her. It can’t be.

No, this is wrong.

It’s wrong, it’s _wrong it’s wrong it’swrongitswrongwRongWRONGWRONGWRONG**WRONG**_!

* * *

Are you not hungry[starving]O[Guardian]mine?

* * *

There is wind whipping her hair into her face and rain stinging her eyes as Meera stares down Ghaul.

He is talking to her but she can barely hear it. A void is howling inside her head, begging her to just _let go_, to just let it in and let it _help her_.

She wants to.

[_There is so much you have yet to learn. Give in. Let it fester and grow. Hatred can be so much **more**_]

The cold.

It writhes within her, teases and tantalizes—whispers of powers long forgotten. Ghaul raises a hand towards the Traveler, he brims with trapped—_STOLEN_—Light, and something inside of her just… snaps.

And the frost explodes in a maelstrom around her.

Soaring forward, gun in hand, Meera viciously throws herself at Ghaul with as much fury as she can muster. The noise that escapes her is not quite a battlecry, or even a real word, but more so, it is everything that she has felt up until now.

This power—it builds within her.

This sensation of vindictive, glorious exhilaration.

And it is _beautiful_.

And it is _wrong_.

When the frost encases and slows her foe, Meera levels her gun and lets her finger _pull_.

Three shots go off from the barrel, all of them leaving behind great holes in Ghaul’s frozen form, and the Cabal roars in retaliation and pain. It is deafening this close to him, but it barely fazes her as she walks closer. Ghaul is forced to a halt when the frost finally creeps into the crevasses of his armor, forces him to use precious time on freeing himself, and meanwhile, Meera casually strolls forwards.

Eventually it is too much, even for Ghaul.

He is brought to his knees and the sickening pleasure it brings Meera is nearly enough to make her break out in laughter.

“You took it from me, Ghaul of Torobatl,” she says. Her voice is quiet, _measured_. As she raises the handcannon once more to him, pressing the barrel to his forehead, her lips part to show a savage grin, is tugged away to let all of her teeth show. “You took my life, _my warmth_, my everything. Allow me to take yours in retribution.”

Above them, still encased, the Traveler’s Light is thrumming. Meera can feel it like fire licking at her fingertips.

So close to being free.

Soon, she promises herself. It will all be over soon enough.

* * *

Meera has never been the… well, the _greatest_ at saying things outright.

It’s always just been so much easier show her affection or sadness or anger outwards through actions, never with words, and the reality of just that is hitting her _hard_ right now.

Because Tora is leaving.

He’s going out there, with nothing but himself, his Light and his Ghost, out to the Cabal carrier that _she_ boarded the first time.

And she doesn’t know if he is ever going to come back.

“T-Tora?”

“Hm?”

He looks at her, expectantly. He’s waiting for something, for her to _say_ or _do_ something.

“Is it possible for you to…” Meera falters and her eyes lock onto Tora’s feet. It feels almost overwhelming to meet his eyes. “It’s just that I—you see—”

“Meera, I’ll be fine,” Tora says and pulls her into a hug. She stiffens for a moment before melting into his embrace, feeling the heat soak through her clothes. “Don’t worry, I have Hera and I have the Light. I’ll be just fine.”

“Still, I want you to be careful.”

“And I _will_. I promise you, alright?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re a damn mother hen, Mee,” Tora’s laughter vibrates through her from where her cheek is pressed against his chest. “You’d think you were sending me off to a fuckin’ Golden Age college or something.”

“It feels like it. If Golden Age colleges was full of space rhinos with trigger fingers.”

“For the record, I plan on coming back to you. No way in Hell am I leaving you alone again after all this shit.”

Her eyes sear from the salt that wells up and she lets out a hiccupping laugh. “Sappy asshole.”

“Oh, baby, you know it,” Tora grins and pulls back to look down at her. Meera can’t help but cling to what she sees before herself. How his bright red hair is hastily pulled back into a knot, how the scar that runs along his jawline makes his corona twist around itself, how his eyes are ever-watchful. His thumb caresses one cheek and he presses a soft kiss to the other one. “I know that me asking you not to worry is like asking the rain to stop falling during monsoon season, but I am going to ask you to have faith in me. I am not done yet, and you ain’t either. So, after all of this is done, I am taking you out for drinks and we are going to get so plastered that the Vanguard will have to scrape us off the floor with the most delicate of spatulas if they want us intact.”

“Sounds dangerous,” she chuckles.

“Oh, absolutely. That’s why we’re doin’ it, sweetheart.”

“Then I will be looking forward to it, Warlock.”

“Keep your calendar free, Hunter,” Tora winks and then, regretfully, lets go of her. “See you on the other side, Meera Quill.”

“And you as well, Solaris.”

Watching him leave in that starship feels like the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

* * *

“I’ll be right beside you, sweet thing,” Cayde’s ghost whispers into her ear.

He hasn’t been back ever since she got off Venus, but now he’s here. Whispering. Taunting. Something in the City must attract Ahamkara.

“Go away.”

“Let loose,” he counters and she can see his—terrible sadistic festering unholy—grin. “Let loose the power you unlocked on Venus. _Show me_ what you are capable of, my love.”

“Go away!” she whispers and presses the heel of her palms against her temples. Her nails dig into the soft skin near her hairline and she falls to her knees. “_Please_.”

Above her the shot from a Cabal anti-aircraft gun goes off and the following _boom_ is deafening.

But the whispers are still there.

It’s like they’ve never left.

* * *

She reaches for Ghaul’s face and her fingers—the frost covers them from her elbow and down and it glistens like _crystals_ like _desire_ like everything that Riven _showed her_—reaches for the mouthpiece that protects his face. With a yank it falls to the ground, the metal making an ungodly noise as it is wrenched out of its molded form.

He is heaving for breath. With every exhale he makes, fine mist rises.

Meera’s hand, still covered in frost, lifts to her helmet and pulls it off.

“You bare your face to me?”

She huffs and the same smile from before graces her lips.

“I want you to see the face of the _human_ who has brought you to your knees, failure. I want you to look into my eyes and know that you failed. Know that Humanity is far from fallen, that we will rise even stronger than before and utterly _crush _you and your pathetic race. I want you to know the despair that we felt when you plucked our life from our chests with but a snap of your fingers and I want—”

“_Meera_!”

Tora.

That is Tora’s voice.

Meera’s eyes drifts to the side, sees her oldest friend—at least in this loop.

“Tora.”

“Meera, that is _enough_. He is beaten. _End it_.”

“When he has _suffered_ like we have suffered I will be more than happy to end his life,” she snarls in retaliation to Tora’s demand. Because that is what he is doing, demanding that she cease everything when he should be _thanking her_.

Ghaul remains where he is, struggling to regain the strength that embodied him mere moments before.

“This isn’t you.”

* * *

Tora has left and the Farm is an anthill of activity as the Vanguard readies an assault on the City.

Meera watches all of it from the shadows, blending all too well into the background as she watches technicians, Guardians, civilians and even the odd redjack walk about with purpose in every step.

“You having fun down there in the shadows, Little Miss Edgelord?”

She glances up above her and sees Cayde. He cracks a grin at her and does a sloppy salute. Meera sends him one right back. Behind him a pair of overalls-clad humans are talking rapidfire techno-lingo and she can just barely make out what the conversation is about over the dull thrumming that fills the air. Something about Cabal fuel and explosives, but she’s not really sure.

Meera makes sure to emulate the most serious of expressions that she can before answering. “You’ve stirred the Hive.”

If Cayde gets her stupid attempt at a joke he doesn’t react to it. A passing redjack, however, _does_ look at her and musters what must be its fiercest attempt at looking reprimanding before walking away, carrying a crate of ammunition for who knows what.

“That’s sick, Mee.”

“Tora did say that I needed to work on my humor.”

“I’m tempted to say that you’re worse than Andal, and that man just barely got by with ‘your mom’-jokes, so that’s saying something.”

“I thought he just made shitty dick jokes.”

“Well, those too, I guess.”

“Wow, worse than a Vanguard. That hurts me, Cayde,” she sighs and gestures to the spot beside her. “You want to come down here?”

“Would if I could, sweetheart. But if Big Blue catches me resting on the laurels, he is going to scatter my voice box across the continent, and I really don’t have the time to either find a replacement or go on a treasure hunt. As fun as that last bit sounds.”

Meera pouts. She knows it’s immature as all Hell, but she is past caring at this point.

“When are we moving out?”

“First wave is headin’ out about five minutes after Solaris has gone for the Almighty. I’m staying behind to make sure that the cloaking devices are holding up before heading to the Last City myself.”

“You need any help with the cloaking tech?”

“They’re all finished, but another person to run about and set them up wouldn’t hurt. Come up here and I can give you all of the sordid deets.”

She smiles. An actual smile that almost makes the corners of her mouth hurt. But she does it.

And in one fluid motion she is up from her hunched position on the ground, a spring in her step as she makes her way upstairs, up to her Vanguard—her Cayde.

Somehow, she’s got a feeling that this might very well be it, that this time they will get it right.

They are going to be fine.

* * *

The smoke is heavy and thick in the air, and Meera dives for the ground when the sound of exploding shells can be heard not far from her position.

There are what sounds like a million voices in her ear, the comm device is barely holding on with the amount of feedback and data that is flowing through it every second, and it drowns out nearly everything around her.

_“—thing to be done, Solaris has gone onto the ship! We’ll have to hold the line down here!”_

Now, all they have to do is wait—_survive_.

Tora is going to do it. He is going to _fix it_.

Soon enough, she’ll have the Light back.

* * *

She should have been there.

“I should have been there when the City fell.”

Shouldn’t she?

Could she have prevented it? If she had not been so centered on herself and all of the perceived slights against her, could she have countered the Cabal?

“Maybe I could have stopped this.”

“Maybe,” Zalli sighs and leans against her. His hand squeezes her shoulder and pulls her into a warm embrace. He feels _scorching_. “Who knows, Mee?”

“I could have saved _you_.”

“You don’t know that. But it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?”

“It keeps me up at night,” she whispers and buries her face in his chest. The tears are staining his impeccable armor. “I wish it would stop.”

“Oh, Meera,” Zalli laughs until his voice is utterly changed—until it is dread and emptiness and love all in one. “I am _never_ going to stop.”

And she knows that he speaks the utter truth.

But _you_ need to get better. You need to _evolve_. The power that I gifted you, it is going to tear you apart, my love.”

“It’s so… cold.”

“Such is the power of Darkness. Cold, _lonely_. It is a path you must wrestle control of alone.”

* * *

Why?

* * *

Why does she have to do this alone?

* * *

Cayde watches her as she looks the tech over, twisting and turning it in her hand.

“So, meeting your standards, or what?”

Meera cracks a grin. He’s so easy to rile up sometimes. “Sure does, Boss Man. This is some pretty nifty stuff, so who did you have to seduce to get to it?”

Watching Cayde’s chest puff up, almost like a proud peacock’s, is a treat in and of itself. “I built it.”

“You’re joking.”

“Hell no, I ain’t!” he squawks. “You can look it through all you want, I made that shit through and through. ‘S like the stealth tech you used back when Oryx was the biggest and meanest thing ‘round, y’know. Just, stronger.”

“Longer lasting as well?”

Cayde sniffs and turns away from her. “I have _no_ idea what you are insinuating with that. Fucking brat.”

Mirth dances in his eyes and it is almost too easy for it to infect Meera, if only for the briefest of moments before the reality of their situation comes back. The fact that soon enough they’re going to be right back in the thick of it, in an actual battle where so many of their comrades can—and _will_—die.

“When we get to the City, Cayde… where are you going to be?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you be with Tora and going up on Ghaul’s own ship, or are you staying on the ground with the rest of us?”

“Well, I was planning on staying with the ground people, yeah. Why?”

“I don’t… Zalli’s dead,” she says and swallows. The sensation of something catching in her throat is _horrid_. “All I’ve got left is Tora now, and I… I don’t want to lose him too.”

“You ain’t losin’ him. Kid’s got balls, y’know.”

“It takes more than a pair of balls to survive this, Cayde.”

“I know, I know. Just saying it like it is.”

“Well, that’s… hmm.”

“But, what I’m hearin’ you say is that you want me to be there with him.”

“Yeah, preferably. You’re a Lightbearer, just like Tora is. He’d have a better chance if you were two.”

Cayde grows quiet with that.

“I’ll… I’ll speak with Zavala,” he finally says and his hand wraps around her shoulders, hauling her close enough to press his lips to her temple. “Maybe we can work something out. You never know, right?”

“Right,” Meera sighs and leans closer.

He is still so very warm.

* * *

Tora is up there. She is sure of it.

He is up there, _alone_, because Cayde isn’t there.

She saw him, saw how he was mowing down Cabal left, right and center back before she got separated from her assigned squad.

Saw how _alive _he was.

The smoke is thick enough that it burns her lungs with every breath she takes, even through the filter in her helmet. Her Ghost’s chassis rustles against her chest when she climbs over a broken support column, and for a moment it feels like someone is stabbing a dagger through her heart.

“I’ll get you back, _I promise_!” she whispers and clutches at the pouch containing the Ghost shell.

And then, she turns around.

The ship is smoking from several holes in the outer casing and the stench of rocket fuel blooms in the air from wherever the fuel tank is leaking out.

But it looks serviceable.

“You could do it,” Cayde quips from where he leans against the ship, spinning a Solar-wreathed knife between his fingers. “Tora would be safe, right? Imagine it, Meera… you get up there, wreck Ghaul’s ass and get be the hero you were always meant to be. Meanwhile, I’d be down here, safe and sound, alongside Tora. Best of both worlds, right?”

“But I’m needed down here. I have to find the squad again before—”

“That’s a piss poor excuse if I’ve ever heard one,” he scoffs at her feeble attempts to deflect. “Don’t tell me that you don’t feel the cold creeping closer, sweet thing. I’ve told you before, unless you prove dominance over it, it’s going to keep on taking more and more of you until you’re but a husk. I didn’t give you all of this for you to _squander_ it.”

She flinches away as if struck physically by his words. “That’s not what I mea—”

“Then quit the feeble act, girlie. You got a _gift_. _Use it_.”

_Prove your devotion_

The words are unspoken, but Meera hears them in her mind. She hears them ring with Andal’s voice, with Zalli’s, with Cayde’s.

Cayde’s is the one that breaks her.

And she takes another step towards the ship.

* * *

The shields go up and the Farm flickers for a moment before it disappears completely from view.

“This is… well, it’s _amazing_,” Hawthorne breathes as she watches both Meera and Cayde engage the entire system they have set up all around the perimeter of the place. “It’s like we’re not even here.”

“And we won’t be on any of the scans that the Cabal might do of the area,” Cayde says as he saunters up beside the human woman. “We’re as safe as can be here.”

Meera watches him from behind, eyes never straying far. When Cayde’s head turns just enough for their eyes to meet she immediately looks away. The tears are still there behind the surface, still _stings_.

She ignores the way that his sigh sounds—crestfallen.

“We’ll get out of this alive, Suraya.”

* * *

She should have expected it.

* * *

“I don’t want you to leave with the strike teams, Meera.”

* * *

Time stands still.

He doesn’t want her there. He wants her to stay behind—she’s a liability, unsafe, a danger.

_Unwanted_.

* * *

Ghaul heaves for breath.

He is finished. It’s all over for him. And _she_ was the one to do this. _She_ was the one who’s brought him so low.

“How does it feel to lose everything? _Again_?” she hisses. When he looks at her with utter contempt in his eyes, she feels something breezy and free stir inside of her chest. “How does it feel to _lose_ to one of those dogs you kicked to the curb?”

This sensation of power is exhilarating.

_Wondrous_.

It will never be enough.

* * *

She lands the ship in a beautiful explosion of a thousand hues.

The Cityhawk is already riddled with bullet holes and who knows what else has damaged it, but the collision with Ghaul’s ship appears to be the final straw.

When she touches down on the landing deck, the collision is strong enough to hurl Meera out through the frontal windows in the ship and sending her skittering across the metal.

It hurts.

By all things above and beyond, _it hurts_.

Her vision is hazy, and there is an insistent ringing in both of her ears, as she slowly clambers onto first her knees and then her feet, holding onto whatever she can to right herself properly.

Something begins humming insistently behind her and Meera barely has enough self-preservation left to duck out of the way before the crumbling remains of the ship begins exploding. Her back feels like it is on _fire_ as she stumbles away, her brain barely holding onto what is happening around her, and it most likely is, but none of that matters.

The Light…

This close, even if Ghaul has trapped it behind a barrier, it is nearly impossible not to feel the waves of life and energy that rains down around her. The sensation of _new life_ ready to blossom within her, of warmth finally reaching her core and chasing away this damnable cold.

She wants it.

In that moment, all that Meera wants and craves back is the Light—damn whatever hallucinations of Cayde and Zalli are spewing. The cold has been draining her for so very long now, and all it would take for her to get back the warmth she has lived with for so many years now would be to beckon the Traveler, to ask it a boon, to give in.

She is so very tempted.

“You’re not giving up on me, are ya, Mee?”

Cayde’s hand wraps around her upper arm and helps her forward. He leads her to what turns out is an entrance to the insides of Ghaul’s ship and starts typing in some sort of code.

Meera has no idea what is happening any more.

* * *

“This isn’t you.”

Tora sounds desperate. Worried.

Meera hears him through the haze that has settled around her like cotton wool. She understands what he is saying, what he is feeling.

But she doesn’t care.

Why should she?

Ghaul would never have shown care towards _any_ of them. He has ordered the deaths of so many Lightless Guardians that the blood feud between the Cabal and Earth will never truly settle down. If he had his will right here and now, he would roar in triumph as he beats her to the ground.

No.

_Never_.

They are not done yet.

“_I_ am not done with him.”

Tora draws closer now. She _sees_ him—right there, out of the corner of her eye she sees him creep closer.

“Meera,” he says, voice like a drawn out warning. “I am telling you, this is not who you are. Step away. _Now_. You’re done.”

“I. Am. Not. _Done_,” she spits out. The words are fragmented at best, but they feel _real_. “He needs to _suffer_!”

“He is still a living being!” Tora counters, raising his voice. It has that edge now, that tint that commands her to listen, proccing automatically. “You are not a monster. Do not stoop to his level.”

“He deserves it.”

“I am sure that Ghaul deserves many a thing, seen by Earth and her peoples, but that is not for us to decide. Meera, we are soldiers, not commanders and politicians.”

His hands are close enough to touch her now. They are so much larger than hers, so much warmer.

“Step back. Give me the gun, Meera.”

* * *

All it takes is a moment.

* * *

“I do not regret it,” Ghaul chuckles. He sounds bedraggled and there is a wet tint to his voice, like blood is pooling in the back of his throat. “Not a single death that I ordered on your people was without my fullest intent. I wanted you _dragged_ through the mud, _tormented_. And look at you now, a prized Hero now fallen so far. _Straying_ from your precious Light. _Worthle_—”

Meera’s free hand shoots forward and wraps around his visible flesh as best she can. With a furious scream she _presses_, and ice shoots from beneath her fingertips.

It crawls across Ghaul, crackling and muffling his screams when it begins to cover him without mercy. With obscene fascination, Meera grins widely as she stares him dead in the eyes, sees the utter _terror_ of this unknown force erupt in Ghaul’s eyes. It remains when he can no longer move or attempt to jerk away from her. He is frozen in time, _in _stasis.

And as his voice is muffled, as he is frozen to a standstill, the bullet is let loose.

* * *

The barrel is still smoking when the body shatters and the fragments hits the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Opinions? _I want it all___


End file.
